The Other Way
by Honeybeemeadows
Summary: Men, like jewels, require a setting. Even if the setting is the last place you'd expect. Rated M for language and other fun stuff.
1. Chapter 1

**ONE**

* * *

The first thing I do every morning is make Jasper lunch.

It's been this way for years, a process that has become as comfortingly habitual as my old bathrobe. There's something endearing about the early mornings when everything has gone grey and blue and purple. Something about the moment when everyone else around you is sleeping, as though there's suddenly so much extra _space_ just sitting there untouched by all those blissfully slumbering people.

I typically started my day by using some of that extra space to decide what Jasper was going to eat later on in his.

Today, it was turkey and smoked gouda on grainy bread. Avocado and tomato and sprouts.

Extra mustard.

No mayo.

Jasper has a thing against mayonnaise. Which is odd. _Really odd_, all things considered. I packaged his sandwich with an apple and a granola bar, which he would hate even more than mayonnaise, so I hid a packet of fruit snacks in his briefcase to make up for it. He would probably find them some time mid-afternoon and then feel bad about the few hours he spent cursing me under his breath for trying to make him eat healthy.

I briefly thought about drawing a heart on the paper bag, but he was already going to be grumpy enough about the granola bar.

Jasper appeared in the kitchen just as the sun was starting to rise, freshly showered and smelling like cedar. He had used the cologne I got him for Christmas, the one that reminded me of my childhood home and I couldn't help but lean into his morning hug to get a good whiff of it. He kissed me lightly on my hairline and plucked my second cup of coffee from my hands.

"Mornin'." He gulped deeply before handing the mug back to me and holding his arms out to the sides for inspection. "How do I look?"

He had a big meeting today, one that he'd been worrying over for weeks like a marble caught hot and damp between his palms. I could tell he took care to dress the part this morning. The Aubercy shoes, for starters, shiny black leather stamped with a boxy pattern and probably one of the more expensive items in his closet. He was in his grey Armani slacks, the ones that made his ass look sophisticated yet completely indecent and had been going through a green kick lately, his apple-hued button down working wonders on his eyes. He'd forgone the tie today, which only_ I_ knew was a sign of now nervous he was; he would strangle himself with it by the end of the day out of nervous anxiety. Instead he'd left the top button of his shirt undone and was wearing his grandfather's vest, the one he swore was lucky. Chocolate brown leather and shiny brass buttons.

The only flaw I could find was that he needed a haircut. His blonde curls were a bit wild around the ears, but it only served to make him look a little more devilish than normal.

"You look like a million bucks," I told him honestly, making a mental note to book him an appointment with Rose as soon as possible and kicking myself for not doing it sooner.

"Well, this meeting is worth far more than _that_." He turned to rummage around in the freezer and eventually emerged with one of those breakfast sandwich contraptions he made me buy him, an indulgence I only begrudgingly allowed. I loved him too much to say no to _everything_.

That's why I was getting him back with granola bars.

"I'll pick you up at six, then? What are you wearing?" He tossed the sandwich into the microwave and turned to steal another hot mouthful from my cup. We were supposed to make an appearance at a black tie business dinner tonight, the mood of which completely depended on how this mysterious meeting of his went today.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I teased, getting a whole entire eye roll out of him.

"I _would_, actually. So that we don't end up clashing, like last time."

"We didn't _clash_. We just didn't . . . harmonize." I faltered, trying not to cringe at the memory. While separately we'd looked great, together . . . not so much. Jasper leveled me a skeptical stare.

"Sweet Pea, just tell me what you're wearing and I'll dress accordingly."

"Long. Black. Pretty scallopy stuff up here." I fluttered my hands in front of my chest and Jasper made a face at me.

"_Scallopy_? Is that a word?"

"I don't know, I made it up. Rose picked the dress out. I'm sure you'll approve."

"Did she pick _that_ out too?" He grinned and licked his bottom lip, eyeing my current ensemble, which I have to admit didn't amount to a whole darn lot. _Figures_. One mention of his sister's influence and he seemed fully appeased. I think he found some sick satisfaction in handing me over to her like a giant rag doll. While I generally looked a million times better than I would have without her, I sort of felt like the floppy plaything of a particularly fashion-conscious monster. Much of my time with Rose was spent being dragged along on yet another endless shopping excursion for yet _another_ one of Jasper's dinners or parties or company outings.

Like torture sometimes, seriously.

"_No_. I did," I said defensively, stretching out to give him a good view of my handiwork. It was deep wine red, sheer and spangled in grey stars, falling just long enough to cover enough of my crotch to be _sort of_ decent, but cut way too low to be modest.

"That outfit can't have been sold exclusively to sleep in," Jasper smirked at me. "Most husbands would command you back to bed and call in sick to work."

"Yeah, well . . . You're not _most_ husbands, are you?" I shot back and watched his smirk twist sideways, his lips puckering around something that looked sour while his teeth ground together.

"Unfortunately, I'm not."

The microwave alarm distracted him for a moment and soon enough he was gathering himself to leave. Briefcase and heartless lunch sack. The grey suit jacket that hugged him in all the right places was slung over his shoulder. That horrid sandwich/thing clutched in his hand. He took one last sip from my mug before turning on me.

"How about a kiss to send me off on my big day?" He angled his mouth at me and I leaned away with a coy smile.

"No way, handsome. That's a privilege you have to earn."

"Then wish me good luck?" His mouth quirked to the side in a weak smile, trying not to look rejected.

"You don't need me. You have the vest." I reminded him, fingering one of the buttons.

"I _do_ need you. Say it, please. I need to hear it."

He practically begged, looking unusually anxious and I started to panic, wondering if he hadn't told me the details of this particular meeting because it really _was_ make or break. Maybe everything was hanging in the balance, teetering just before it plummeted and he didn't want me to worry. Our life, as it was, depended completely on his job and we were both well aware that he held our golden ticket, either up or down. I flung my arms around his neck, gripping him tightly with my lips to his wild hair and whispered in his ear.

"Kick ass. Take names."

Jasper hugged me close for a moment before pulling away, shaking his head at me with that wistful smile on his face. "See? This is why I love you."

With a solid, stolen kiss to my mouth, he was out the door.

* * *

His behavior worried me all day.

I thought about how drawn he'd looked begging for my good wishes while I was sorting our laundry. _He never did that._ Thought about the way he had asked me how he looked as I was loading the dishwasher. _He never did that either. _He hadn't peeked into his lunch bag _or_ whined about granola bar and he certainly hadn't given me the full detailed rundown of exactly how his day was supposed to go, as he normally did.

_This meeting wasn't just any old meeting. _

Carlisle would never _fire_ Jasper, that much I knew for certain. They were almost as close as father and son. Carlisle's eldest son Emmett accepted Jasper wholeheartedly and together they created a trifecta of perfection that I knew none of them wanted to fuck with, taking their market by storm. Tripling profits in the first year alone and steadily inching toward the summit of clearly defined success. I had never climbed a mountain before, but I was pretty sure that the slide from the top wasn't one that any of them wanted to consider.

But while Jasper's job was built on an increasingly solid foundation, it wasn't exactly set in stone; there was rumor that the 'second son' was returning from some extended stay in Africa or some such nonsense, and I'm sure that the reappearance of the person whose role he had stepped into had Jasper especially nervous.

I thought about him while I watered the plants and mopped the floors.

Thought about him while I lounged on the couch and tried to read.

Thought about him while I wandered my freshly watered greenhouse in my bare feet, pulling weeds and plucking flowers. Jasper had the greenhouse built the year we moved in and it was where I spent most of the time he was at work. Today, even the joy that I got from finding a single half-ripened tomato on my struggling plant was tainted with worry. I knew that he was likely right in the middle of the meeting that had him strung so tightly this morning and I spent most of the afternoon trying to send him all the good vibes I could muster.

Launching them out into space and hoping they found him in that big skyscraper downtown.

Rose came over around four to do my hair and makeup and proved to be no help at all in relieving my anxiety. She didn't know what was going on either and had always kind of sucked at reassuring me anyway. Instead, she spent most of her time lecturing me on the fine art of wearing heels, which I sucked at just as badly as she did at the whole reassurance thing. My hair was flat-ironed nearly to its death, pretty face deftly applied and she left to meet Jasper at the tailors only after she deemed me suitable for the evening. I spent an hour trying not to mess up my face or hair before I got dressed, still worrying.

I actually liked this dress, which I rarely admitted to.

It was long and black, heavy fabric that fell clear to the floor. The bodice was tight and structured, cupping my breasts and overflowing with a fluff of soft laser cut silk. There was a delicate flowery pattern stamped into the fabric that concealed just enough of my cleavage so that I didn't feel as though I was giving away the farm. My hair gained a good couple of inches without the curls and Rose had done my eyes up dark and heavy.

I looked younger, thinner, and a bit more tortured than I had in a very long time.

Jasper appeared like an apparition behind me, hair slicked back and his new suit fitting perfectly, as expected. It was made from a light grey fabric that bordered right up on silver, single-buttoned and cut slim around his torso. Rose put him in a black shirt, left open at the collar again and he was wearing his 'special occasion' shoes, the wing tips that were the exact same color as pure clover honey. He grinned at me over my shoulder, a heavy hand on my hip, our reflections staring back at us in the mirror.

"You look beautiful, Bella."

"You're not so bad yourself." I smiled back at him and watched as he lifted something over my head, settling it against my neck with his fingers on my back to clasp it. A heavy pendant rested on my breast bone and I picked it up to get a good look at it. It was a massive chunk of amber, easily the size of a walnut, the color of Jasper's favorite whiskey and the honey-shoes he was currently sporting. There was a fine silver filigree of sparkling diamonds all around the edge and I'm sure it cost far more than he'd ever admit to.

"My god, Jasper. What's this for?"

"I signed the deal today." He fixed the clasp and pressed a kiss down over the top of it, lips warm on the skin at the nape of my neck, eyes locked on mine through the mirror. "And, you deserve it."

"You're not getting any tonight, you know? You can't buy me expensive jewelry and expect me to hop into bed with you." I smirked at him with my reflection, fingering the pendant and he shook his head at me with his own smirk playing on his lips.

"I am well aware of that misfortune, Dearest." He shot me one last smile through the mirror before heading for the door. "The limo is waiting outside, but we're already fashionably late so don't rush. Oh, and by the way," he stopped his hand on the door jam. "Thanks for the fruit snacks. After that granola bar, I was starting to think that you hated me."

"Impossible." I shook my head at him, fingers still on the heavy stone at my chest and heart hammering like a tripwire under the cage of my ribs.

* * *

**AN:**

**Nothing is as it seems.**

All the standards apply: no copyright infringement intended, beta free (so all mistakes are mine) and reviews = love.


	2. Chapter 2

**TWO**

* * *

Jasper was the man of the hour.

It took me a long time to understand precisely how it worked, but Carlisle's company bought and sold high-end properties, most of them crumbling resorts in faraway places that were typically rife with mosquitos, large scary spiders and stunning white sand beaches. They hired contractors to make a quick sweep through the new purchase, giving each acquisition a face lift before the property was turned back over to the market.

At triple the investment.

And Jasper had just scored the deal of the century.

It was a dilapidated island getaway that had been ravaged by a tidal wave the previous year, left to rot until he stumbled across it. He'd snatched it up the moment he found it, not wanting to wait for fear of losing the opportunity. He then had to explain himself to Carlisle and Emmett, which was why his meeting today had him so nervous, the one he wouldn't tell me about. He'd breached their standard operating protocol and ventured out on his own, not consulting with his two superiors before making a rash decision. It was an act, he explained to me in the limo, that had never been done before and he wasn't entirely sure what the consequences would be.

Carlisle had looked pained. Emmett was downright pissed. Until they saw the numbers.

Enough zeros will forgive any indiscretion, I suppose.

"Does this mean we're going to Thailand!?" I squealed, already bouncing in my seat with excitement. One of the best perks of Jasper's job - _by far_ - were the visits that had to be made to sign a final, in-person inspection of the properties. These "inspections" were basically just excuses for vacations and we'd travelled to some of the prettiest places on earth simply to try out the beds.

"Yes, it does. Not for a while, but soon." Jasper patted my knee, amused by my turn of composure, barely containing his grin as though he hadn't expected any different from me.

He was especially attentive all evening. Constantly cradling my hand or pressing his palm to my back, ushering me around the room to introduce me to people I wouldn't remember an hour from now, beaming that beautiful smile of his and shining under the glowing light of praise his success bestowed on him. He kissed my shoulders and the back of my hand more times than I could count and I couldn't help that some of his radiance rubbed off on me. It was hard not to get caught up in his glow and I'm sure I spent most of the night beaming at him like a love-struck teenager.

I wasn't the only one. Carlisle was nearly ready to adopt him, fawning over him almost as thoroughly as Jasper was fawning over me.

"You two make quite the golden couple tonight." Esme, Carlisle's wife, plopped into Jasper's chair beside me halfway through the evening, smelling of roses and dressed impeccably, as usual. Carlisle was introducing Jasper to an elderly gentleman who I'm certain had a particular penchant for cream filled pastries, his hand clapped possessively onto Jasper's shoulder. It was probably a good thing Carlisle was holding on so tightly, Jasper's airy glow was getting more intense and I was sort of afraid he might float away entirely before the evening was over.

"It's all him," I shook my head and pointed our husbands out to her. "Look at him, he's practically glowing."

"You are too, dear. You must be so proud."

"I am." I watched Jasper carefully, chest aching with something that felt heavy, like heartache without all the usual desperation. Esme caught me fingering the pendant at my chest and smiled cheekily at me.

"Your anniversary is coming up, isn't it?"

"Next month."

"Five years, is it not? I'll always be sad that you got married just before we met each other," she mused, sounding sad.

Esme had missed our wedding by a matter of weeks, circumstance ushering life along at an alarmingly rapid pace and I don't think she would ever forgive me for it. My marriage certificate was dated almost exactly four months after Jasper was hired by Carlisle, precisely one day before he signed the paperwork on the enormous house we now lived in, and two weeks before we were due in Italy for the very first of his 'inspections.' Esme found me hiding from a company dinner party in the bathroom of the new fancy hotel and we sat on the vanity sipping whiskey from the silver flask Jasper bought me for my birthday a few years earlier until I was ready to return to the stifling party. She had never had a daughter of her own and took a liking to me immediately, becoming something of a god-send by helping me to adjust to our new standard lifestyle as gracefully as possible. Though she was nearly twice my age, we became fast friends, bonding over dirty martinis and clove cigarettes while our men were off talking about sod and foundations and infinity pools.

"Yes, five. It's amazing how quickly it went by." The gemstone on my chest was burning hot, as though someone had strung a glowing ember on a burning hot chain. I gulped as Jasper glanced in my direction, catching sight of me staring at him and lifting his glass with a slight nod of his head in salute. He stuck out like a silver beacon in a sea of black, light and youthful amidst the dark and aging, eyes locked on mine amid the din of conversation as though I was the only person he could hear.

_Ugh, I needed some air._

There were french doors just a few steps from our table that opened up to a grassy lawn and I excused myself from Esme, ducking into the darkness and scampering around the side of the enormous house. I lofted my dress up out of the dewy grass and hoped I wouldn't break my ankle, trying to remember what Rose had said about walking through grass in these stupid shoes but I couldn't remember her saying anything about it and already sort of knew that she'd tell me not to. I found a quiet spot on the low stone wall to sit on and perched myself there, distant noise from the crowd inside spilling out of the giant house we were occupying. I wasn't even sure whose home it was, though I knew that Jasper had likely introduced me to them earlier tonight.

Through the chaotic mess of faces and names, the only constant was Jasper's face and the warm heat of his palm, drowning out all the useless noise.

Five years.

Five _years_. I hadn't stopped to think about it until that very moment but holy shit, that was half a decade. It was surprising how stealthily the time had snuck by, like an animal crouched low to the ground, slinking through the underbrush.

"You must be Jasper Hale's wife."

I almost fell backward right off the wall. Someone stepped out of the darkness and stood just outside a patch of illuminated grass, the barest hint of a person visible. I steadied myself on the wall, heart beating frantically, clammy palms pressed to the stone.

"Possibly," I tried not to gasp.

"Possibly? Is it up for debate?" There was a chuckle from the dark, low and throaty and I tried to force my eyes to see better. All I could make out was a choppy silhouette of hair and a pale white smile through the gloom.

"It depends on who you are. And exactly how you know that."

"Ah, well, I only know that because I've been watching him show you off all evening. . . . _And_, my mother told me." He tacked on at the end, as though he wasn't going to tell me that part.

"You've been watching us all evening?"

"Not _him_."

"He hasn't been showing me off," I grumbled only halfheartedly.

"Sure he has. And with good reason."

The man stepped into the light and I got a good look at his profile, a heavyset brow and defined nose, lots of messy hair tumbling down over his forehead. He needed a haircut worse than Jasper did. He reminded me of someone I didn't know very well, a snapshot taken from a hundred feet away, but I couldn't put my finger on who.

"That's quite the rock you've got there. Impressive." I saw his hand gesture toward me through the dark and my own hand immediately pressed over the chunk of amber as though I could hide the evidence. It occurred to me that he could see me much better than I could see him, the light from the window illuminating my face but leaving him bathed in shadow.

"I should get back inside." I lowered myself carefully off the wall, accepting the mystery guy's offered hand to balance myself in Rose's stupid excuse for shoes but only after I almost toppled right into a prickled rose bush. I fumbled for a moment with the tumbling fabric of my dress, my ankles tangled, which bought me a moment to control my blush before I righted myself. His skin was smooth and surprisingly cool, my fingers clutched in his palm as he led me back toward the house without letting go.

Which was a good thing. I probably would have face-planted somewhere along the lumpy lawn without him.

As we neared the noise spilling through the doors, I used the brighter light to get a better look at the guy I was currently holding hands with. He obviously hadn't gotten the memo about the whole black-tie thing because he was in a pair of dark jeans, a thin cotton t-shirt and his hair was, as I expected, an absolute disaster. He was wearing a sport coat that looked a little too big for him, the hint of a tattoo peeking from the cuff and I wondered if he'd borrowed someone else's jacket because he didn't have one of his own.

"There you are. I've been searching everywhere for you." Jasper emerged through the crowd the instant we stepped through the doors and took my hand, pressing his mouth warm and soft to the back of it. I let go of the mystery guy's hand the same moment Jasper's lips touched my other one.

"I found her in the garden. You should be careful leaving her alone, she's far too enticing to be left to her own devices." The mystery guy spoke up before I could, his eyes locked onto what was happening between Jasper's lips and my skin. He had the barest hint of a five o'clock shadow and eyes that were a color of green unknown to the natural world. I was right about the tattoos, patterns of black sprawled across the backs of his hands and peeked from his shirt collar only hinting at more. There were even a couple pieces of metal piercing his bottom lip and I drug my eyes off his face with only the sincerest amount of effort. Jasper glanced at me with his eyebrows tucked together and then gave the guy a calculating look, obviously taking note of his less than polished appearance and the flush across my face.

"I don't believe we've met. I'm Jasper Hale." He pulled me possessively into his side, fingers digging into my hip and extended an open hand.

We both watched the guy nod to himself as Jasper confirmed the question I had declined to answer. He smiled to the side and met Jasper's grip, eyes bouncing to me as they shook hands, looking hungry and irritated and oddly enough, a little pained.

"Edward Cullen. I've been waiting a long time to meet you."

* * *

Jasper was gazing thoughtfully out the window on the way home, sprawled up against the side of the limo and looking a little buzzed. He'd been clutching a snifter of brandy all night long and it had given him a flushed sheen of pink around the edges, skin dewy and glowing. His jacket was undone, shirt untucked, hair rumpled.

Far too delicious for his own good. Sometimes this shit killed me.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked him from the opposite seat, lying on my side with the dress spilled around me and my head a little dizzy. I'd been holding onto my champagne just as tightly as Jasper had his brandy and I probably had my own rosy glow.

"Edward. I wonder how he gets his hair to do that?" He mused quietly.

"I'm pretty sure yours wouldn't." I grumbled at him, doing a lot of that tonight, struggling ungracefully to sit upright and folding my arms across my chest when I finally managed. I was having the hardest time keeping my mind off those lip rings and the smatterings of ink that only teased at the implication of more; his hair was a whole other level of awesomeness that I couldn't even begin to deal with. Across the car, Jasper was licking his bottom lip, tongue swiping languidly along like it always does when he was deep in thought and I stared at his mouth, an all too familiar ache settling between my legs.

Watching them shake hands tonight, polished silver rubbing up against weathered copper, made me feel as though I was witnessing a car accident.

Eerily intriguing. Thoroughly confusing. Painfully realistic.

Can't look away.

* * *

**AN: Reviews = love**


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

* * *

It was raining when I woke up, tangled up in my heavy dress in the cocoon of Jasper's bed. The fluffed silk at my chest had wilted dramatically and my hair was a goddamn disaster. Jasper was still in his own clothes, dress shirt bunched around his waist and his own hair just as bad as mine, snoring into his pillow. All of the covers had been kicked off onto the floor and I could smell him all over me. We must have gotten rather cuddly in our sleep last night.

We tended to do that when we were drunk.

One glance out the window at the unexpected clouds hanging heavily against the sky and a surge of hope rushed through me. Rose hated the rain, complaining about the awful things it did to her hair. This lessened the likelihood that our scheduled shopping/torture excursion would actually occur today.

She wanted to go on the hunt for swimsuits.

_Commence rain dance._

I took a shower in Jasper's bathroom, just for kicks, while he snored softly to himself in bed. His enormous shower was tiled in pretty blue pieces flecked with silver while my own bathroom was rather plain soft green and cream combination. His shower head rained down like the second coming and I secretly loved using his shampoo, heavy and spicy instead of my usual sweetened flowery options. I peeled out of the dress and glared at the deep red marks etched across my ribs from the stiff corset contraption, sort of hating Rose for them even though she never said anything about sleeping in it.

Basics: Don't sleep in your party dresses. Don't walk across lumpy lawns in heels. Don't talk to strangers and definitely don't hold hands with them.

Don't think about Edward and those tattoos.

Especially in the shower.

Jasper was still asleep when I emerged, freshly shaven from armpit to ankle in case I couldn't fend off Rose, watery grey light only beginning to brighten the room. His fluffy grey robe was singing my name from the hook on the door and I wrapped myself up in it, trailing the belt behind me on my way to the kitchen, content to let Jasper's alarm wake him as usual.

Lunch today was chicken salad spiked with curry powder and studded with green grapes and walnuts. Crunchy stone ground crackers. Sweet baby carrots and a single jumbo sized peanut butter cup to stay in his good graces. I finished with his lunch and was sitting on one of the barstools with a cup of coffee and the newspaper when Jasper appeared.

"Good morning lovely." He kissed my forehead as he passed. "I was wondering where my robe went."

He was dressed in black slacks and a pale blue shirt that made him look like a fucking angel, skin lit from somewhere underneath, pearly and translucent. The deep blue wing-tips that were practically black and shiny enough that I could see my face in them if I looked hard enough. His curls were edging beyond wild and moving onto out of control. I reminded myself - _again_ - to make him an appointment to get it cut.

"You took a shower in my room." Jasper spoke up around a mouthful of cereal, eyeing me slyly as though he'd caught me doing something far worse.

"How do you know?" I squared my jaw, daring him to accuse me of hair in the drain, even though his robe sort of gave it away.

"Your little wet footprints all over the floor," he chuckled. "It was damn near adorable. I almost forgot what lifetime I was in."

Jasper shoveled down the rest of his cereal in record time, thieving more than half of my coffee in the process before he was shrugging into his jacket. "I'm in meetings all morning, but I certainly wouldn't mind if you kept me included on your decision making today. My phone will be on vibrate." He grinned at me, all sorts of devious. He was clearly looking forward to my shopping trip with Rose today much more than I was.

"Jasper," I leveled him my sternest look, trying not to smile. "You're not allowed to enjoy them as much as you obviously do." He wasn't shy about openly ogling the skimpy swimwear Rose picked out for me and there were times I was certain that they were in on this thing together, enjoying my discomfort while exercising their fashion muscles.

"Why not, Sweet Pea? What is there not to enjoy?" He craned his neck to peek down the crack in his robe and I clutched the neck of it together. "You do things to swimsuits that should be illegal."

"I don't understand you at all," I said honestly. I really didn't sometimes.

Jasper shook his head at me with another of those wistful smiles on his face, as though he was trying to find the comedy in a not-so-funny joke. "Just because I don't sleep with you doesn't mean that I don't find you wickedly attractive."

I tried not to blush while he ensured that everything he needed was in his briefcase and checked out the contents of his lunch sack.

"Shit Bella, really?" He plucked the container of baby carrots out of the bag and scrunched his face at me. I tried my hardest not to roll my eyes when I spoke, blush fading away.

"I put a container of Ranch in there. Try to eat some of the carrots with it."


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

* * *

"No fucking way," I yelled from the dressing room, attempting to adjust what Rose _claimed_ was a bikini but I was pretty sure was probably a spare scrap of fabric she ripped off the bottom of her skirt. It didn't cover anything except maybe my clit and my nipples, the swells of my breast spilling out on either side and more of my ass on display than I could stand, especially if I was going to be waltzing around in front of Jasper's boss.

Esme would slap me if she saw me in this.

That, or try to steal it from me.

Rose's head poked through the heavy brocade curtains and she eyed my nearly naked ass appreciatively. "Why not? It's fucking sexy."

"I'm not trying to impress anyone." I grumbled, fingers under the measly hems as I attempted to adjust, only revealing more skin in one direction when I pulled in the other.

"You should. With a body like yours . . . I'm too hippy to wear crap like that." Rose eyed me with something like jealousy, which I did not understand at all. She poured herself into vintage swimsuits that hugged every exaggerated curve on her body and probably would have made Marilyn Monroe cry tears of frustration.

"I'm married." I glared at her through the mirror but she only arched one delicate eyebrow and rolled her eyes before her phone appeared in front of her face and the fake shutter snap alerted me to what she had just done.

"Don't send that to him!" I whirled and lunged at her, falling through the curtain in a desperate attempt to get to her phone before her thumb got to that send button. Rose stumbled backward, holding the phone high above my head and I hated her inherent talent for heels even more, her six inch killers lofting the phone far out of my reach.

"You're _married_, remember?" She used my own words against me and I thought briefly about stomping my bare heel onto the tight toe of her stiletto. "Someone should get to enjoy this."

"He enjoys me enough already," I grunted as I jumped, fingers swiping through air.

"Not in _that_ way." Rose reached around and swatted my ass, allowing me just enough change in elevation that I managed to swipe the phone from her hand. I fumbled with the buttons, searching for a trash can.

"It's ok." Rose shrugged defiantly, watching me struggle with her phone, eyes gleaming. "I can just send it to him with my mind." She made a show of putting a finger to her temple, closing her eyes and humming dramatically.

"Fuck you both and your creepy twin-thing." I snapped at her and erased the image from her phone, not at all surprised to find that she'd managed to snap pictures of the five suits that came before it without letting me realize it. She was a sneaky bitch when she wanted to be. I didn't bother to delete them because I was sure they had already made their way to Jasper's phone.

"_Ahhh_, he got it." Rose sighed and dropped her finger, looking serious enough that I wasn't sure if she was joking or not. "This one is a definite yes, Bella."

"I agree. Definite yes." A deep voice echoed through the room, startling both of us and I jumped, clutching Rose's arms to keep myself upright. I knew that voice.

_Oh, Jesus._

Edward Cullen was draped across the red velvet love-seat in the very center of the dressing room, the mirrors on either wall casting a million copies of his sharpened profile into space. A leather jacket was discarded in a rumpled heap on the floor and his hair was deliciously disheveled, falling across his face. Black boots crusted around the soles with mud were propped up on the mirrored table in front of him, scattering dust and dirt across the polished surface and there was the barest hint of a stubbled shadow ambushing his jawline. I blinked at him, completely unsure if this was a horrible dream or an awesome hallucination, the room suddenly too bright and too loud, my eyes stuck on all the ink he had on display.

A riot of color engulfed each arm and crept from the neckline of his t-shirt.

"Who the hell are you? _Get out_." Rose tried to shove me behind her and snarled at Edward, a single, pointed finger indicating the exit and the direction in which she would like him to fuck. She was sort of scary when she was angry and basically fucking terrifying when she was territorial. She was probably both right now, because I was far more than half naked. Her fault, really.

"This is a public dressing room," he stated blandly, not bothering to answer her question with his eyes locked on me as I peeked out from behind Rose. I was sure he'd already seen the lot of it while Rose and I argued, cringing a little at the thought of me hopping around far more than half naked while I was trying to get at Rose's phone. I was also sure that I was now mostly covered up behind her but I could still feel something burning underneath my skin and every single inch of it went up in flames.

"For _women_," Rose snapped.

"I'm here with a woman."

He jutted his chin defiantly, crossing his arms nonchalantly behind his head and my stomach bottomed out, even though it shouldn't have.

The curtain to our left whipped open and out pranced a tiny girl positively slathered from head to toe in tattoos and sporting the exact same swimsuit I was. She made it look better than I could ever hope to and danced up to one of the giant mirrors as though she was the only one in the room, twirling on tiptoe to inspect her reflection. Her dark hair was cropped short and there were sparkling hints of metal all around her face, diamonds embedded into the skin at the corners of her eyes and heavily gauged ears sporting hollow earrings the size of silver dollars.

A sparrow trapped in each one, the metal silhouette of a bird spanning the empty space, frozen in mid-flight.

"I kind of like this one," the tattooed girl mused, her voice oozing out like maple syrup; thick and sugary in a natural, untainted sort of way. Edward swallowed hard and nodded in agreement _long_ before he wrenched his eyes off me, glancing at her distractedly. I watched him pull the two metal hoops piercing his lip into his mouth as he studied her, eyes raking up and down her backside. His gaze found mine again before he spoke, reluctantly releasing the metal from between his teeth.

"That one is a definite yes."

The girl turned once more to inspect her backside and finally caught a glimpse of Rose and I out of the corner of her eye. Her head swiveled clear around like that girl from the movie with the projectile vomit and a squeal built in her chest.

"Oh! You have the same one!" She danced over and plucked me away from Rose, my stumbling feet following her back to the mirror in a fog of overwhelmed bewilderment. Rose just let me go, maybe a little shocked herself. Neither of us were all that great with other girls and this one in particular seemed a little more than overbearing.

"It looks so much better on you." Her head angled as she studied us side by side and for all her statement amazed the shit out of me - _because it was a damned lie_ - I was totally distracted by her tattoos. Amid the chaos I picked out a giant peacock on her hip draping an ornate tail of feathers down her leg nearly to her ankle. There was a blackened silhouette of a gnarled tree on her other calf and a large section of text on her side that looked as though it had been ripped from the pages of an ancient book, the words delicate and feathery. Her whole left arm was a Disney movie, mushrooms and butterflies and furry creatures with big watery eyes. A single word was tucked into the elbow of her right arm that I couldn't quite make out, partially because it was backward in the mirror but also because it looked as though it had been written by a four year old. The last letter dropped off and trailed a good six inches down the length of her forearm, ending in a manic scribbled splotch right above her wrist.

"I totally agree. _Definite_ yes," she mimed the two opinions voice before her, nodding at me. "This one looks like it was made for you." Her gaze shifted over our shoulders, falling on Edward as though she felt compelled to include him in her decision. "I'm going to buy the purple one."

He was too busy staring to immediately respond, the metal hoops back between his teeth and his eyes hollowed out. I'm sure it was the twin curves of her ass cheeks he was so entranced with, fuller and rounder than my own would ever be and barely covered with a hint of silvery fabric. Though, from the way Rose huffed and snapped her fingers to break his enamored gaze, hers might not have been the only one he was admiring.

"Yeah, ok." He licked his lips and met my eyes through the mirror. "The purple one."

* * *

**AN:**

Someone asked, and yeah, it's true: The Other Way is also a song by Weezer.

I am a music junkie and I have no plans to reform.

**reviews = love**


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

* * *

Jasper was eating leftovers today.

A container of spaghetti topped with one of the giant meatballs we made from scratch last night and my grandmother's famous spicy marinara recipe. Two pieces of garlic bread in a plastic bag and a pear from the tiny, stunted tree in my greenhouse, perfectly ripe and only just starting to bruise. I skipped the candied consolation prize, but only because I knew he wouldn't turn his nose up at the meatball the way he did at anything that came out of the ground.

We were leaving for Jasper's newest island acquisition tomorrow and my day was going to be full of last minute mundane crap; the gardener, the security company, the little neighbor girl who collected our mail and Rose, who would likely take up most of my time. She was coming over in an hour to pack for the both of us, a lesson I'd learned the hard way the only time I insisted on doing it myself, and then planned to drag me to the salon to hack off my split ends and give me some deep conditioner treatment she wouldn't shut up about.

Jasper appeared in the kitchen earlier than usual, an armful of folders and his cell phone already attached to his ear. He rushed distractedly through a conversation with Tanya, his secretary, as he stuffed his briefcase full and took the coffee cup right out of my hands to take a sip. He handed it back as he pocketed his phone, taking a bite from the bagel I had slathered with cream cheese and honey, his old favorite.

"Rose has you scheduled for a haircut at one," I reminded him and he nodded, licking honey from the corners of his mouth. Playing unfair, as usual.

"Tanya has it worked in. Will you be there?" He sounded hopeful and I smirked at him, well aware that he hated subjecting himself to his sister, one on one. Theirs was a dynamic that teetered a fine tightrope between extreme hate and ultimate love, wobbling precariously in between.

"Yes, Angela demanded time with my nails and Rose didn't stop bitching about my split ends yesterday until I agreed to come in. I thought maybe we could go out to dinner afterward?" I'd let the refrigerator dwindle down to the bare minimum in anticipation of our departure and it had even been a stretch to come up with the whole meatball gig last night.

"Sounds like a plan to me, sugar. See you at one."

His fleeting departure kiss left my lips sticky and sweet and I licked it all off the moment he was gone.

* * *

Jasper breezed into the salon just as Rose was finishing off the fresh set of highlights she'd talked me into, my head full of tinfoil. Angela spent nearly an hour roughhousing my hands, nails scrubbed and scraped and polished to the point of no return, her fancy new manicure making my short stubby fingers look suddenly long and slender. They were the graceful hands of a dancer or a piano player on my completely average, sort of clumsy body. _So far out of place_. I was admiring them discreetly when I felt his stubbled cheek rasp against my own and his breath land hot on my shoulder.

"That measly ring just doesn't do you any justice," he lamented, curling his fingers under my palm and hoisting my hand up into the air between us. I didn't tell him that I'd really been admiring my nails and let him press a kiss down over the top of the sparkler he'd gotten down on one knee to give to me nearly half a decade ago. It was pretty, if simple, and though he might find it rather plain in retrospect, I secretly loved the subtle implication it hinted at - our humble beginnings.

Judging from the rapid escalation in the luxury of his gift giving and the new fortunes' worth of amber and diamonds still hanging around my neck, I knew for certain he wanted to bestow me with an upgrade.

"I love it. I don't want a new one." I pressed my temple up against his and gripped his fingers tight.

"Are you certain?" From the edge of disappointment in his voice, I was almost certain he already had one picked out.

"Yes. This one is important." Our eyes met in the mirror, a dozen other pairs all focused on us from around the room, which was typical whenever Jasper was around. The salon girls twittered around him like a pack of flustered birds and here he was making a spectacle of us before he'd even said hello. I saw Angela and Lauren turn their faces away the moment they realized they'd been caught staring, but Rose just perked an eyebrow at me through the mirror and nudged Jasper out of the way.

She deposited me under the heater nearest to her station and Jasper settled into Rose's chair with a wicked grin in my direction, his proximity to his twin obviously reminding him of the images that flooded his phone yesterday afternoon. He swiped his tongue across his lower lip and tightened his grip on the arms of the chair, all bedroom eyes and tousled hair even in the middle of the afternoon.

"Please tell me you bought the silver one."

_Fucker_. I blushed a nuclear shade of crimson.

"After much persuasion, yes, I bought the silver one."

"Ew! That guy? How creepy was he?" Rose choked, pulling her fingers through Jasper's hair as she decided how short to trim him, obviously remembering our encounter with a muddy, leather-clad Edward in that pristine white dressing room.

"Who was this?" Jasper eyed me carefully without moving his head, pensive and concerned, every unknown possessing every unspoken potential. I waved him off.

"We saw Edward Cullen when we were out shopping."

"You _knew_ him?" Rose gaped at me, fingers suddenly still against Jasper's scalp and her face contorted in confusion. We were both good at keeping secrets, so this should come as no surprise to her. I shrugged.

"Not really. We just him met a few weeks ago. He's Carlisle's son," I hedged, pointing out the obvious and hoping she wouldn't recall that I'd spent most of our encounter with Edward flushed red as a goddamn tomato, next to naked. She wrenched her eyes from mine, finding Jasper's gaze in the mirror and when he nodded she cast her gaze at the floor, features compacted into the middle. I knew she was trying to emulsify the image of Carlisle, crisp and polished, with her brief brush up against the prickled, colorful surface of his son, their features echoed in each other so faintly it was almost like seeing a ghost.

"He saw you in a bikini? Which one?" Jasper took only a moment to put his freaky twin vibe to good use, his eyes studying Rose's face in the mirror as though he could read all her thoughts and leapt from boredom to territorial pissing in one solid bound. I rolled my eyes, refusing to indulge him but Rose foiled my plan with her big fat mouth.

"The silver one," she snickered.

Jasper's jaw dropped, gaping at me for a moment before he swallowed something with his face puckered as though he'd just forced down a burning supernova. "I don't know how I feel about that."

"Stop it. You don't get to do that," I snapped at him. His grip on the armrests hardened slightly and he narrowed his eyes at me.

"Do _what_?" He was daring me to say it out loud, backing me into a corner rather than backing down himself, which was what he normally did when we came to an impasse.

"He was there with a woman." I ground my teeth together to keep a straight face and lowered my voice so that it wouldn't wobble.

"And _her_?" Rose butted in again, comb and scissors at the ready, her eyes rolling. "She acted like she was gonna be your new best friend. And what's even up with tattoos, huh? They're like fucking potato chips or something. You can't have just one."

"That must have been Alice. He talks about her a lot." Jasper mused, sounding distracted with his eyes firmly closed as Rose continued snipping through his curls. I wondered what he was thinking about, because I was thinking about just how much of Alice's skin was covered in tattoos. And how much of Edward's . . .

And how Jasper's hair could never do what his did.

And that Jasper had talked to him.

_A lot._

"You've talked him? A lot?" I asked without thinking and met Jasper's eyes. He arched a single brow, suggestive and faintly irritated.

"He's working at the firm, Bella. I've talked him every day for two weeks."

* * *

**reviews = love**

**A teaser for Chapter 6 will be live Monday, over at The Fictionators. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Six**

* * *

Jasper's new hotel was the prettiest one yet.

Perched on a sprawling crescent of land nestled into clear blue water. The belly of the curve was a shallow basin of pearly white sand and brilliant pastel water, smooth and still and see-through. The island was dotted along the belly with individual bungalows, ten in all, ranging in size but built on the same open floor plan with large walls of glass that could be pushed aside to create an airy space with the lush jungle pressing right up into the rooms. Some of the bungalows sat high and sprouted verandas that jutted out over the water while others were tucked low between the tumbling piles of rock that partitioned each private beach, just a few sandy steps from the door. There was a large main building slung down low on the bottom edge of the crescent, sprawled up against the sandy beach looking out over a vast stretch of horizon, speckled with other islands.

I stepped off the small boat we'd taken from the mainland, knees wobbly from hours spent in the air and the sloshy ride across the water, accepting Jasper's hand gratefully in case they went out on me completely. A warm breeze was whipping over the ocean, sending my dress fluttering around my knees and Jasper tried to smooth some of the windblown hair out of my face, smiling at me through the sunlight.

"Jacob will take you to our bungalow," he motioned to the porter who was collecting our luggage from the boat. "Take a shower. Relax. I'm going to go find Carlisle and check on a couple of things, but meet me at the front desk in an hour? I have something I want to show you."

He was grinning like a five year old with a secret, mouth soft against the back of my hand before he trotted up the beach toward the resort, newly shorn hair ruffling in the breeze.

I trailed the porter down a winding path, sidelining the main building and entering the thick foliage that covered most of the island. The soft white sand continued as the path meandered through twisted trees, plants sporting leaves larger than frying pans and soft curling ferns. At regular intervals, a small plaque tastefully lit from below indicated at another villa, although none of them could be seen from the path. Jacob lead me clear to the end of the trail, even waiting patiently when I got distracted by a weird looking plant.

Jasper picked one of the best for us. Squatting resolutely on the very tip of the crescent moon with one of those over-water decks _and_ a private beach, it was one of the most secluded spots on the entire island. Jacob stood aside to let me enter first, trailing me through the door and depositing our bags near the bed before turning to push open the glass walls, salty ocean air flooding the room. Apart from the corner sectioned off for a bathroom, the space was free of walls, a giant bed dominating one wall and a low set of couches set near another. Everything was done in shades of cream and varying hues of blue with blonde wood floors and soft mosquito net curtains.

"Do you need anything else, Mrs. Hale?" Jacob shuffled as he spoke, hands clutched behind his back and his eyes on his shoes. His skin was the color of cooked-down caramel, deep eyes and heavy brows underneath a head of thick black hair that was held back by a band at the base of his neck. He couldn't have been more than seventeen and was probably well aware that I was his boss' wife, his job held in the palm of my hand as though it was a bird, fallen from the nest.

"No. But thank you, Jacob." I smiled as warmly at him as I could and watched in some amount of fascination as his caramel skin blushed rose from underneath. He left me without making any noise as he crossed the floor and I stood in the middle of the bungalow for a moment, adjusting to my new surroundings.

The air was warm and damp and heavy, the floor sanded velvety smooth under my feet and I was exhausted. I peeled out of my dress, leaving it puddled on the floor and headed out the open doors, stumbling across the beach and sinking into the salty sea water in nothing but my lacy underwear. The soft sand sprawled right into the water and billowed up around me with every step, mimicking the heaving waves of a dress around my legs. I tottered out until my chin was just above water and my toes were dancing along the barely reachable bottom. It was perfectly still, the water mirroring the sky, the only sound coming from the faint rustling of the trees behind me and my heart pounding clear up in my head.

I'd spent most of the flight curled up against Jasper's arm, fast asleep after a double whiskey and a couple of bright blue advil provided by the too-smiley flight attendant. We took one of the smaller company jets, the one done up all in cream and ivory, rarely used because the boys had a tendency to seal deals with liquor and then spill it all over the upholstery. As it were, Esme had banned them from flying in it unless she or I were present. The advil worked wonders, but the whiskey spent the entire flight tangoing with my jet-lag, leaving me feeling twice as weighted and I was sort of awestruck that I could still float.

A shrill scream echoed over the water and I almost drown.

No joke.

I surfaced with a splutter, salt in my eyes and my heart lodged up in my throat lest any of the seawater make a run for my lungs. It took a few floundering moments for my feet to find the sand again and I pushed the hair out of my face as I gained my bearings, eyes burning. Another scream, and my heart thumped into overdrive now that I was fully convinced my ears hadn't made the first one up. I swam toward the little tumble of rocks that separated my lagoon from the villa next door and scrambled up the pitted surface, scraping my knee.

I didn't know what I expected to find - the cherry-red-churn of a shark attack possibly - but certainly not a tattooed boy with an equally tattooed girl slung over his shoulder, heading resolutely toward the water with a devilish grin on his face despite the slapping hands and screams directed at him from behind his backside. Alice was putting up quite the fight, lungs and fingernails and all, but Edward wasn't having any of it. He'd clamped a hand down around her ankles to still her kicking feet and was gripping her ass tightly to keep her on-board, her dress hitched up over her waist and her underwear on display.

Shark-attack red.

I watched from behind the rocks as Edward marched right into the water, slacks and collared shirt and all, stopping only when he was waist deep. With one last scream from Alice he launched the tiny girl into the air as easily as if he was flipping a coin. Her dress fluttered for the briefest of moments before she hit the water with a giant splash that completely belied her size. She popped up in a fit of rage and seawater, launching herself at Edward and in the split second before she forced him under the water his eyes caught mine over the rocks. His eyebrows perked and I ducked out of sight before I saw any more.

* * *

Jasper found me in the ocean an hour later. I was sitting armpit deep in the warm water, muscles gone soft and limp, thoroughly distracted with the task of trying to decide how badly your fingers could prune before they finally fell off.

I was pretty sure I was getting close to finding out.

"I came here with my wife, but I fear she might have turned into a mermaid."

I glanced up at the deck to find Jasper leaning against the railing with his arms folded across his chest and a wry smile on his face, a halo of sunshine making him a little hard to look at. I picked a foot up out of the water, wiggling my toes and sending droplets plopping back into the ocean.

"No tail."

"That means that you've only just found your feet." He trotted down the steps and stopped at the edge of the water, bottom lip between his teeth as I stood and made of show of tottering dramatically toward him on my 'newly acquired' legs. I did feel a little like Ariel emerging water-logged and uncertain from the water, letting myself fall against him when I was within range. He wrapped a solid arm around my waist and planted a kiss on my shoulder.

"Salty," he grinned into my skin.

"Sorry I was late." I pressed my face against his chest, whispering words into his shirt, my skin prickling as the sun drank up every thirsty drop. "I ruined your surprise."

Jasper shook his head with his fingers skimming my spine. "It's far from ruined. Besides, I'm enjoying finding you this way much, much more."

When he pulled me away to get a good look at me, speckled in water, dripping curls and pale pink lace, he was soaked up his front side. A blurry water stain in the shape of me.

* * *

We fell asleep on the big plushy bed, lulled under by the breeze and the waves and the damp heat. Jasper's heart was thumping rhythmically beneath my ear and all of my joints had gone slack from soaking in the warm salty water that smelled strongly of lavender. So strongly, in fact, that I was feeling fuzzier off the ocean than I was from the whiskey-soaked jet-lag. By the time I was dreamily wondering how his heart could possibly be beating out the rhythm to an old Johnny Cash tune, I had decided that this was some pretty good stuff, high grade, and I drifted away pondering just how you bottle and market this sort of product.

He woke us an hour later, pulling me from the bed and pushing me into the shower, shaving at the sink while I lazily washed my hair clean of salt, humming to myself through my semi-drugged haze. He stepped under the water just as I was soaping up the fluffy white puff ball I found, scrubbing off the salt that had cemented to my skin while we slept. The water poured down over his shoulders and he was holding his razor out toward me, face freshly shaven and a wry smile on his face. We'd only ever showered together a few forgiving times before, and never fully sober.

Stoned off seawater doesn't count.

I tried my fucking best to look at his face. Or the razor. Or the ceiling. Anywhere but his abs. Or his chest. Or everything _below_ that, which was the hardest fucking thing I've ever had to do.

"What?" I stuttered, taking the razor from him without knowing why, face flaming.

"I thought you liked mine better? You use it more than your own." He smirked at me, his curls starting to catch a fine dewy mist. I was watching for any faint southern stray of his eyes, but they remained locked on my face. His self control was obviously in much better shape than my own.

"I do."

"Why is that?" His eyes narrowed, but the smirk remained. "Does it work better? Or does it remind you of me?"

"Both."

* * *

**Leave me some love, yeah? I don't bite. **


	7. Chapter 7

**Seven**

* * *

Jasper pulled me around the side of the main building and pinned me up against the rough plastered wall, hips to mine and his breath in my face. The jungle was brushing leafy fingers against the shoulders of his soft grey shirt and we were conveniently hidden in the shadow between two windows, light and noise from the front desk leaking through the glass on either side of us. Jasper's curls were in fine form, the damp air oddly taming them all while dusting his skin with a faint sheen of dewy moisture. I undid the second button of his shirt as he dug his flask from his back pocket, fanning at the flushed skin of his neck while he pressed up against me and undid the cap, offering me the first swallow before taking a solid gulp himself.

He didn't wince or cough or splutter like I did, my eyes watering and throat burning. He only smiled around the mouthful of fire and didn't take his eyes off me, making the whole awful ordeal look smooth and sensual.

"This dress is absolutely stunning, Bella. It does something quite mystifying to your eyes." His fingers found the soft fabric at my thigh, a thin pleated whisper-light chiffon that fell clear to the ground and would have been indecently sheer were it not stained a deep shade of indigo blue. It was loose and airy and draped quite low in the back, which meant I wasn't wearing anything underneath and Jasper licked his lips as he eyed me, fingers edging my hip bones and looking for all the world as though he was contemplating activities far outside of our boundaries.

"Rose picked it out."

"I wasn't complementing the _buyer_." He took another lazy swallow and tipped the flask at me with his eyebrows lifted in question. I would never understand him anyway, so I took the flask from him instead, still warm from his pocket and downed another fortifying swallow. I did better the second time, allowing the liquor to slide down without fighting, letting it collide with the seawater buzz I was still sporting.

"Edward and Alice are here." The combination obviously wreaked havoc on my filters.

"Yes," Jasper nodded. "I told you that Edward joined the company. Alice tagged along."

"Is Esme here?" I tried not to shuffle my feet, mostly because he'd be able to feel it if I did. Her presence was far more calming than I would ever admit and something about Edward made me nervous and achy in ways I couldn't even begin to explain. Alice just plain overwhelmed me.

"She's flying in the day after tomorrow. Something about a charity dinner." Jasper shrugged before another thick swallow and he tucked the flask away. His hands found the exposed skin at my low back and he fingered my hips, holding me close, eyes boring into me. "Tell me that you love me."

He wasn't pleading, or even demanding. Simply asking, while giving me the option to refuse.

_Classic_.

"Of course I do." I shook my head slightly, wondering when he was going to start believing me.

"That's good. I have something to show you."

He took my hand and we tiptoed through the dark jungle, rounding a corner of the sandy path to a building looming through the twilight haze. I could tell that it was made up entirely of glass panels intersected with something pitch black and elaborate, like the curling wrought iron that framed my grandmother's ancient canopy bed. Jasper set his shoulder against one of those glass panels and it opened with a weary scrape, glass and metal to flesh and bone. We stepped inside and I heard him fumbling for something in the dark, his fingers still twined through mine and the room was suddenly flooded with soft light.

Never in all my days . . .

There was glass on every side of me, the ceiling left open and airy through the metal hatch-marking the sky. The frame was certainly embellished, though far beyond my expectations. Vines and leaves of cast-iron were twining their hard, spiraling fingers through the metal, blending seamlessly with the climbing plants clawing their way toward the sun. There was a giant, gnarled tree in the far corner, limbs twisting themselves through the latticework ceiling like an embroidery project. The branches sprouted leaves shaped like pears and giant clusters of flowers that looked like soft pink grapes. The bark was covered in a fine speckle of emerald green moss, soft and springy to the touch. Between me and that awesome tree were intricate pathways cut through a creation that would make any botanical garden president jealous. There were potted trees and wild plants, leaves of every imaginable color, shape and size, the air full of so many smells that it sent my head reeling even farther.

"Jasper, it's . . ." I choked his name, struck dumb by the spectacle and heard him chuckle behind me.

"It's not a dream. I saw the photo and knew we had to buy."

* * *

Jasper walked me back to the hotel before darting off to find Emmett. We were joining both him and Carlisle for dinner in the hotel restaurant, presumably Edward and Alice as well. It was now just an enormous expanse of empty chairs and silence and I stood in the middle of the dining room, trying to imagine what it would be like with every seat filled. Tropically dressed tourists with sunburns and umbrellas in their drinks, talking too loud and snapping too many pictures. A clatter of conversation and dishes rising into the air, drowning out the sound of the ocean.

I liked it better this way, quiet and still.

"Bella. You look ravishing, as always." Carlisle ambled into the dining room, taking my hand and pressing a kiss to my knuckles as though we were playing at being royalty. I smiled as best I could and gulped down the complement, never all that good at receiving them.

"I hear you're flying solo for a couple of days."

Carlisle chuckled and reddened at the neck just like a teenage boy in love for the first time. "She's scheduled to fly in on Wednesday. She told me to tell you to wear plenty of sunscreen and that you can't go exploring until she gets here." He pressed his lips together as if he could barely contain his amusement.

"Of course she did." I grinned back at him.

"Why don't you choose where we sit tonight? This will be the first meal ever served here, a trial run of sorts, so be sure to pick out the best table." Carlisle motioned at the room and my eyes scanned the endless opportunities, falling on a table situated right up near the windows, close enough that the metal frame fell away to a stunning view. The sun was staining the sky purple and gold as it sank, setting the crests of the waves afire, the faint speckle of stars only beginning to appear in the big opened mouth of the sky.

"There," I pointed. "We can watch the sunset."

Carlisle nodded in agreement. "I've never known you to make a bad decision, Bella. Is that where Jasper gets it? He seems to have an uncanny knack for intricate problems."

"I can't take any credit, you know that's all him," I deflected. "He's special."

"That he is."

We were interrupted by a door flung wide open and the dancing appearance of Alice, clad in a tight black tube dress that only made her inked skin all the more apparent. Her feet were bare and covered in sand, the diamonds at the corners of her eyes studded in alternating shades of blue and green. She caught sight of us and smiled the smile that I was beginning to realize was her default look, a grin that ate up her face as she wove toward us through a maze of empty tables.

"Bella, allow me to introduce Alice. A friend of Edward's." Carlisle extended an arm toward her and I watched in fascination as she stepped right up into his embrace as though they'd known each other for years. He and I were still in the fragile, polite phase of our relationship, kisses to the backs of my hands and conversations that were only just beginning to feel comfortable. I was strangely jealous that this little tattooed girl had sprung right into his good graces. Here she was, all metal and ink and blinding megawatt smiles, accepted without question or hesitation.

"Carlisle, you can say it out loud. It won't hurt, I promise." Alice sounded as though she was teasing, poking him softly in the side and from the look on Carlisle's face, twisted slightly in the center, maybe she was.

"Say what out loud?" I asked on a whim, interested that this little girl had the ability to make Carlisle look like that, amongst all her other seemingly unrealistic accomplishments. I had been fairly certain that his face never wavered from the calm, collected-complacency thing he was always doing; here he was looking as though he'd bit into slightly sour, incredibly sweet lemon.

"I'm not just Edward's friend." Alice snickered and my stomach twisted up just like Carlisle's face. "I'm his_ life-partner_." She broke into a peal of laughter strung through with silver, as though she'd just told the funniest joke to have ever existed.

I completely missed the punch line.

* * *

Jasper's hand came down heavy on my knee underneath the table, stilling the anxious bounce that had taken over my ankle. I gulped and told my leg to chill the fuck out, glancing at Jasper from the corner of my eye but he was still talking animatedly with Carlisle and Emmett about something that I thought involved water rights. It sounded as though something was wrong, urgency tainting their words but he didn't even falter even as he moved to still me, the conversation rolling right along while his fingers gently squeezed my thigh through the layers of my dress.

He knew me too well sometimes.

We were halfway through dinner and I couldn't keep my eyes off Alice.

Actually, I couldn't keep my eyes off Edward _watching_ Alice. She'd confused me so thoroughly with that 'life-partner' reference that I'd spent the appetizer and salad course studying them intently rather than engaging in any sort of social involvement, or even enjoying my food.

Thus far, neither of them was giving me much to work with.

Jasper and Edward had appeared together, Jasper bee-lining to kiss me softly before greeting Carlisle. Edward ambled up to Alice as though he couldn't be bothered to feel rushed, hands hidden in his pockets, hair in disarray and his mouth tucked up to the side like he knew a delicious secret. He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek and pulled out her chair, but other than that he'd done nothing but watch her intently. From the look on his face you would have thought she was a bomb bound to explode at any unforeseen moment, or an animal that was deathly dangerous but only under a certain set of circumstances.

Other than that kiss, he didn't touch her. Not once.

He did meet my eyes across the table though, _twice_, busting me in my staring and that was what set my knee off. He was wearing a thin cotton button down that was shadowed from underneath by dark splotches of ink, sleeves rolled to expose his colorful forearms and yeah, there really was more of it around his neck. The top button was undone but I could barely bring myself to inspect this new expanse of skin, almost afraid of what I might find and nervous that I wouldn't be able to hold myself together once I did. I was trying to pay attention to Alice in one ear, regaling me with some story that I was finding hard to follow when I heard my name from the far end of the table.

"I'm on to Bella," Carlisle was chuckling.

"What?" I butted in, hand falling down over Jasper's to stop his infuriating massage of my thigh and he wound his fingers through mine with a secretive smile. It was hard, but I directed my attention at Carlisle. "Don't talk about me unless you have any something nice to say."

"I'm starting to believe that she's your secret." Carlisle ignored me and chided Jasper conspiratorially, an eyebrow arched suggestively in my direction, his words tottering along the thin precipice of a double-edged sword.

"Oh, Bells keeps me on a nice straight line." Jasper winked at me, obviously thinking that he made a joke.

"She's not your only secret," Emmett goaded, winking at Jasper and my heart pounded to a bone-shattering halt.

_What?_

Jasper's fingers dug so hard into my thigh that I knew for sure I was going to have a bruise later and I tried not to gasp as I discreetly tried to pry them out of my flesh. He'd gone completely rigid and I wondered if he was even breathing.

"And what is his other secret?" I asked, doing my best to sound nonchalant because it looked as though Jasper wouldn't be able to form words right now, even if he wanted to. "I'm intrigued."

"That salon you recommended? Epic win." Emmett winked again at Jasper as though it meant something entirely different, although I highly doubted that Jasper had referred his boss's son to any of his favored strip clubs. He must have sent Emmett to Rose. Jasper's fingers relaxed, but not enough to free his grip of my thigh.

"You went to a salon?" Edward chuckled into his fist and ducked a swipe from his brother. From the looks of it he'd never visited one himself, that tousled hair unfamiliar to a pair of scissors.

"Whatever, shithead," Emmett sneered at his brother, giving us a momentary glimpse into their childhood. "They gave me beer there, _two_ in fact, and a shot of whiskey so it was more like a bar where you get your hair cut."

"Are you sure they weren't doing that just so you'd be drunkenly complacent? It looks a little crooked back there." Alice reached around Edward and fingered the hair at base of Emmett's skull.

"No," Emmett huffed and pulled away from her fingers. "It's just good marketing. Speaking of good marketing,_ the girls_ . . . my god." He rolled his eyes and clutched his heart as though it hurt.

"The girls aren't marketing schemes." Jasper ground words through his teeth, trying to appear calm and succeeding for the most part except for his fingers, which were still digging into my flesh. He'd sunken quite a good deal of his own money into Rose's salon and I knew he would be offended at the suggestion that sex was part of the business plan. If you asked Rose, however, her girls wore short skirts for a reason and none of them were suffering for it.

"With legs like that?" Emmett's eyebrows raced up to greet his hairline. "Of course it's marketing. The beauty who cut me should have a fucking continent named after her, much less a measly flower."

_Oh shit._

"Do you remember this beauty's name?" Jasper sounded mildly uninterested but then again, only I knew that he was gripping my leg under the table like it was a rock he wanted to pick up and throw. Emmett obviously took it as a jab to his chivalrous side and scowled in his direction.

"Of course I do."

"Well?" Jasper growled.

"Well, what?"

"Her name? You referred to a flower, I'm interested to find if you remembered anything beyond that."

"Lavender."

Jasper shook his head. "Rose."

"No, Lavender. I'm sure of it. Well . . . maybe it was Lilac or Poppy or something." Emmett smashed his eyebrows together, trying to conjure up the name around the vision before his eyes.

"It's _Rose_," Jasper snapped.

"Fine. Fuck." Emmett huffed just as our plates were set before us, heralding the beginning of dinner by tucking his napkin into his collar. "She could be named Moonflower for all I care. I think I'm in love."

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	8. Chapter 8

**Soapbox:**

- I'm a Peace Corps kid. Childhood in Africa. Much of what is to come is personal. I can't promise that some of it won't be disturbing **:::** references to death, tribal practice and the basic hardships of life in a third world country are a given from here on in, m'kay? Consider yourself warned. **:::**

- Lemons are also a given. Just sayin'.

- Patience is a virtue, fyi.

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**Eight**

* * *

Carlisle showed up at the bungalow at precisely 5:12 the next morning, basically dragging Jasper out of bed while he rambled on and on about something involving the length of the boat dock. He paced around while Jasper got dressed, still ranting about replacing it and I lay there for nearly twenty minutes, tangled in the sheets, still unsure what was so wrong with the old one. He didn't even apologize for taking Jasper away, just gave me a brief wave as Jasper leaned over the bed to press a kiss to my forehead and I was left alone in our big empty bed to the breeze and the waves and the sound of my heart sloshing around in my rib cage.

Not even out of bed yet. Thoroughly drunk lavender and too much sunlight.

Jacob showed up just a few hours later, knocking softly and blushing that beautiful rosy caramel color as he scanned the room. I wondered what he was looking for because something sad and disappointed tainted his voice when he told me that the girls at the spa were waiting on my arrival. I spent the morning test running a few of the offered treatments and silently endured an hour getting avocado mashed into my hair, mango mashed into my skin and coconut mashed into my feet. By the time the spa girls allowed me to escape I felt more like a fruit salad than I had any right to, stumbling to the pool in a daze. The heat of the sun made my skin smell even stronger of sugary fruit and combined with the lavender buzz wafting off the water, I was trashed. I slumped into one of the shaded lounge chairs which was really more like a bed and allowed a uniformed girl to bring me a drink garnished with one of those horrid paper umbrellas I was beginning to despise.

I managed to get half of the drink down before Emmett appeared, Edward in tow, and wished instantly that I'd had time for the whole thing.

Edward perched in a seat beside the lounger while Emmett unceremoniously pushed me over and flopped down beside me. He fanned his face and complained about the heat as Edward produced a pack of cigarettes and tucked one between his lips. Right between those two rings through his bottom lip.

"Where's your man? We were supposed to meet up an hour ago to discuss the foundations of four and seven." Emmett spoke into time to the flare of Edward's lighter.

"With Carlisle," I shrugged. I wasn't sure at all what he meant by four and seven, but wasn't interested at fucking all. The way Edward's mouth was shaped right now, the hollows that appeared in his cheeks when he sucked, was far more intriguing than any construction nonsense.

"Should we be worried about how much those two seem to like each other? If I didn't know any better, I might be jealous." Emmett grumbled and plume of smoke was pushed out of Edward's mouth in a weaving tail of ghostly grey.

"I'm not worried. At least I know he's taken care of." I shrugged because it was true and I really just wanted Emmett to shut up so that I could watch Edward smoke in relative peace. This shit was fascinating.

"Maybe you should be worried about how close he is with _Moonflower_. He seemed a bit more fond of her than anyone should feel about their hairdresser." Emmett had that same lopsided grin on that I knew was directly tied to his dick and I scowled at him.

"You do understand that she's his sister, right?"

"Who?"

Edward lifted the cigarette to his mouth, cupping his jaw with long slender fingers, eyes narrowed in my direction, listening along. Why was that so distracting?

"Moon-_uh_. . . Rose," I corrected myself.

"They're siblings?" Emmett kind of squeaked when he said it, which was interesting considering he was the size of an obese silver-backed gorilla.

"Twins." I couldn't help wrenching the knife a little. Emmett actually shuddered.

"No wonder you liked her so much. She's the female version of your boy-toy." Edward spoke up around a mouthful of smoke and got an especially evil eye out of Emmett.

"Jasper is most certainly _not_ my boy-toy."

"He was all you talked about for months. I thought for sure I was coming back to be introduced to the great Jasper Hale, my new _brother in law_. Come to find out, he's spoken for." Edward's eyes fell on me like burning balls of molten wreckage, littered from the sky in a hailstorm of rampant devastation, lips wrapped around his cigarette again.

"I thought you gave that shit up?" Emmett waved his hand at the cigarette dangling from Edward's lips, obviously eager to shift the spotlight. "For a doctor, you really are fucking stupid sometimes."

_He's a doctor?_

Edward plucked the cigarette from his mouth and held it as though he was prepared to launch a dart, pinning it between three fingers and pointing it at Emmett as he spoke. Holding one of those was not supposed to look that good.

"Yeah, well . . . some traumatic bullshit went down in Africa and it was the least lethal of my old habits to fall back into, medical degree or not." Edward took a drag and exhaled, staring off across the water as though he was really very far away. Maybe on a different continent.

_He **is** a doctor._

_The Africa thing is true?_

"You were in Africa?" I piped up, unable to decide which one was the most intriguing and both of the boys turned at me with identical looks of humor on their face. I'd seen it on Esme enough to know that this was a conversation I'd probably zoned out on at a million cocktail parties.

"Yes. With Alice." Edward looked as though he wanted to smile at me, but was holding it back. He took another drag off his smoke, eyelids fluttering closed, lavender-lidded in a way that reminded me of the drugged-up ocean.

"Is she a doctor, too?" I still couldn't even begin to reconcile my visions of doctors in white scrubs and face masks with the inked up boy sprawled in the chair beside me, smoking. Alice fit the bill even less.

"In theory. She calls herself a midwife."

"And just what was the traumatic bullshit that brought back your bad habit?" Emmett butted in, maybe still a little pissed about Jasper bailing on him and the fact that his paramour wasn't actually a Primrose who was related to his business partner. "Did little Alice turn you out of her bed? It must get awful lonely out there in the middle of fucking nowhere."

"You don't want to know." Edward scowled at the ocean, mouth hardening and his voice gone brittle. He took an angry drag off the cigarette, shaking his head viciously and muttering something to himself.

"Oh, ho! So she _did_ turn you down!" Emmett sneered, enjoying Edward's obvious discomfort and I'm sure he was probably the worst kind of big brother to have. Edward eyed me furtively as he shook his head.

"No, that's not it." He sucked on the cigarette and I tried desperately not to watch.

"Then what? You vowed those things away for good the last time we talked." Emmett curled his lip. "You were never that good at following your own rules, anyway."

Edward stared at Emmett for a long time before he spoke, his mouth set in a hard line and his eyes pulled back into his skull, aging a millennia in under a second. When he finally spoke, his whisper was stained with pain and rage and something ancient that made him sound as though he'd spent more time as a ghost than the other way around.

"The baby."

"Holy _fuck_. Please don't tell me that you have some half-Cullen kid running around naked and shoeless somewhere." Emmett gaped at Edward and I realized that my own mouth had fallen open just in time to get it closed before either of them noticed.

Edward glanced at me again, eyes wide and face ashen.

"No, it was Alice's."

"Damn, she looks good for having a kid," Emmett blurted. "I thought their boobs sagged when-"

"No, _Emmett_," Edward wrenched his eyes off me to finally glare at his brother, spitting in a hiss of rage, neck flushed. Hands trembling. "The baby Alice _found_. In a _field_. It took the miserable thing four fucking hours to die and it took me four days to convince her to drink some water, much less get out of bed."

Edward stood fluidly and we both gaped up at him, the sun spilling over his shoulders and setting his hair on fire to match his mood. "_That's_ what happened in Africa. _That's_ why we're back and _that_ is why I'm smoking again."

He hurled the pack of cigarettes at Emmett as though he wished it was a grenade and stormed away.

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	9. Chapter 9

**Nine**

* * *

Alice found me the next morning by the pool, a still infinity drop that veered inexplicably into the ocean; from the loungers on the patio you could almost pretend that they were the same body of water. I was reliving the awkward exchange I'd witnessed between Emmett and Edward here yesterday, pondering over the vague hints Edward had dropped when she appeared almost as if I had summoned her.

"Hi."

She stepped up to the lounger beside me, a pretty, sheer blue robe draped over her shoulders and falling nearly to her ankles. Her boobs were struggling to free themselves from her tiny purple top and I wondered if this was the suit she had been talking about in the dressing room. Just the thought of the way Edward's face had looked superimposed in the mirror as he eyed us standing nearly naked in front of him, starved and wanting, made my skin flame.

"Hi, Alice." I flapped my hand in front of my face to try to cool off, but it was impossible.

"Edward is off with the guys. I think something's up with the boat dock."

"It extends too far," I nodded. Jasper had finally filled me in last night, pacing around the villa until I'd fallen asleep watching him bounce back and forth while he ranted, shirtless and agitated. "They're going to have to shorten it. Something about public domain."

"Mind if I join you? It's sort of boring without company."

I motioned at the lounger beside me and she smiled as she curled herself up on it, tucking the robe around her legs and laying her hand over the tattoo on her neck, staring pensively out over the perfectly still water of the pool. She'd cocooned herself so effectively that I could only see shadowed indications of the ink on her skin through her robe, the diamonds at her eyes the only obvious sign of devious tendencies. I wondered just how those diamonds were set into her skin, imagining the worst combinations of metal to skin but still sort of fascinated.

"You're staring."

I snapped out of my daze to find her eyebrow perked in my direction and a placid smile on her face, as though she was expecting this. I tugged my eyes off her face and mumbled through an apology that sounded halted and fumbled, even to me. Alice waved me off with a grin and her hand through the air.

"I'm used to it. You'll get used to it too."

"Will I?" I eyed her skeptically, pretty uncertain that I'd ever reach the point when I wouldn't feel the compulsion to examine her. As it were, I found something new every time I looked and the girl was turning into a practical treasure map. Through the transparent fabric I noticed a bright green and blue snake that was curled around her right thigh, enormous black marble eyes and tail spiraled delicately around her knee cap.

"Yes, eventually. But . . . even when I think that someone has finally gotten used to me, I still catch them staring," she mused. "I guess it always surprises me, even though it shouldn't. Like Edward, he's seen it all so many times but he still stares. It's strange."

Part of me was oddly jealous of her, the object of his errant gaze during dinner last night. Another part of me now knew that he probably wasn't staring at her tattoos but watching her for clues and the unwelcome vision of an ashen baby in a dead, sunburned field flitted in front of my eyes.

"He told me that you're a midwife," I stuttered.

"I am. Nothing like a battle between life and death to keep you on your toes." She winked at me as though it was funny, diamonds sparkling around her eyes and again, I was left scrambling to find the punch line. This girl had a strange sense of humor.

"Did you meet him in Africa?"

"No, we met a long time before that. The desert sings, you know?"

"It sings?"_ Was it just me, or was that a drastic change in direction?_

"When the wind hits the sand dunes, they hum. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard." Her voice had gone calm and dreamy, cooked down to a thick, buttery version of its usual syrupy sweetness.

"It sings here, too. Over the water." I waved toward the waves and the far off keening the wind let off when it grazed over the water.

"It's not the same," she sighed. "But it's close."

"It sounds like you miss it."

"I do." Her eyes dropped to her lap and she fingered the tie of her robe. "But I don't know that I'll ever hear it again."

"You're not going back?" I knew the answer before I'd even asked. I only had a vague conjured vision in my head, Alice surely had the actuality permanently seared into her brain and that baby in the field was enough to keep me away forever.

"Not unless Edward goes. And right now, he refuses to even speak of it."

* * *

The boat dock turned out to be a shit-storm of legal loopholes and mounds of paperwork, all four of the guys holed up in their offices behind the lobby, punching numbers and yelling into phones. It was going to have to come down, a new one built in its place and as usual, they weren't thinking small. It meant a lot of work on their part, or lots of standing around and overseeing the people actually doing the work, depending on how you looked at it. Early and late and everything between. It was normal enough for me, so common that I'd come to expect it but Alice seemed thoroughly disappointed. I watched Edward cup his hand to her face when her lips pushed out in a pout and just when I thought he was going to lean down and kiss her, his eyes met mine from across the room instead.

Trapped me for what felt like an eternity until Jasper broke the spell.

Judging from the attention Jasper lavished on me before he allowed us to leave, my exchange with Edward hadn't gone unnoticed. He pressed a few soft kisses to the corners of my mouth and whispered a handful of garbled words as he stroked my face, ever mindful of his competition and making an example of me.

I took Alice to the greenhouse, the only place I could without ruining my traditional exploration-day with Esme. She'd probably kill me and dump my body in the ocean if she found out I went wandering around without her. We spent an hour inspecting every leaf on every plant and I counted seven different kinds of moss creeping up the trunk of that old gnarled tree. It was currently dropping pink petals and littered us both as we stood underneath it, making me nearly as colorful as Alice.

She talked my damn ear off.

Which was fine by me because I was a much better listener than I was a talker and I let her ramble through the greenhouse, telling me a surprising number of random stories in great detail. Some of them were personal, childhood experiences in word form, but most of them were about Africa. She talked in a language that put me right there next to her, standing in the middle of a dusty, colorful, chaotic marketplace instead of the greenhouse with its quiet hum of dripping water.

A third world country, rather than a private island.

"The dirt there smells like something old, _really old_. Like centuries of knowledge. And when the wind picks it up and it blows by you, it's almost like you're standing in the very middle of the whole world. Right where it all began, and the dirt knows every story there is to know."

"The women look like giant butterflies, all wrapped up in fabric that they dye in every single color you could imagine. They carry all their stuff piled on their heads and their babies strapped to their backs, and I swear to you, their smiles are brighter than anywhere else in the world."

"They scar their babies, these patterns that fan out across their cheeks and down their necks. I thought it was horrible at first, until I found out why they do it. Babies are a hot commodity out there in the desert, more of them die than survive and it isn't uncommon for one tribe to steal from another to replace lost generations. They cut these beautiful patterns into their faces that tie them inextricably to their families, so they can't be claimed by someone else. That's when I started to find the beauty in it. Suddenly, something that I thought was repulsive and crude became attractive."

"Once, Edward had to stitch up my foot because I stepped on this piece of metal, somewhere in Niger, but we were low on supplies because we hadn't gotten a delivery in so long that he did it with thread from his shirt and one of my earrings. It was amazing!"

Sure enough, the girl had a ragged scar on the bottom of her foot that looked vaguely like a question mark, puckered by long-gone thread.

_An earring? Seriously?_

As we were leaving, a pink-flowered plant near the entrance caught Alice's eye and she stopped beside it, fingering the petals. "Devil's Claw," she murmured, looking a little lost and barely breathing.

"You know it?"

"Yes, it grows in Africa. They use it somewhat like aspirin. A pain reliever." The flowers were large and deep throated, burning yellow at the center and haloed with a ring of dark green leaves. She fingered something on the underside of the plant and produced a seed pod that obviously leant itself to the name. It was small and oval shaped with two large hooks protruding from one end just like a pair of horns. "These get tangled on an animal and carried away so that the seeds can spread."

Alice touched a fingertip to one of the sharp horns, a pearl of blood appearing in its wake. She smeared the blood thoughtfully into the pads of her fingers, sounding as though she knew all too well what she spoke about.

"But it's dangerous too. Only best in very small doses."

* * *

We ended up at the hotel bar, drinking ourselves thoroughly trashed on shots with strange, touristy names. We vetoed two, one that tasted like coconut dipped in battery acid and another that turned our mouths an unpleasant shade of brown. Just as the bartender was supplying another tester, this one pink and sugared around the rim, Jacob appeared with a heavy black leather purse in his hand. Alice had left it in the spa and she gave Jacob a kiss on the cheek that he shuffled uncomfortably away from with more of that rosy brown blush. It seemed as though he wanted to ask me something, eyes darting nervously to me several times as he accepted Alice's praise, but he never worked up the courage.

"You were at the spa this morning?" I asked as Jacob scurried away, palm to his cheek. Alice was probably playing the same role for Edward that I did for Jasper, dutifully trying out certain parts of the experience that he either didn't have the time or desire to do himself. Sugary shots being somewhere on that list, spa treatments near the very top.

"Yeah, they put this yellow stuff on my face that I didn't like at all." Alice scrunched up her face in disgust. I totally agreed.

"I know, they did that to me too. It was terrible."

"We should go back tomorrow and try out that weird foot massage. The one with the little fish and the papaya. I'm intrigued." Alice slung the purse onto the back of her chair, a delicate clanking sound of metal littering the air around us as she did. There was something hanging from the thick leather handle, what looked like a bunch of giant keys.

"What are those?" I touched the jumble of metal, thin rods that ended in a sharp T shape, flattened at the other end into a fan paper-thin fan. There were three all together, each a different length, the metal twisted into a spiral between the ends.

"My Kissi Pennies," Alice fingered the cluster. "They used to be a form of money a long time ago." She untied the string and plopped the whole pile of metal onto the bar top in front of us. "The longer the rod, the more it was worth."

"They're not considered money anymore?" I touched the metal myself, surprised at how worn smooth it was.

"No, not for a long time. Now they're used for ceremonies. Rituals. I got these two from a Bande Chief after I delivered his neice. The mother, his sister, didn't make it and the Elders think that the pennies can hold a piece of someone's soul. He wanted me to carry a part of her with me." Alice picked up one of the shorter rods and pressed her lips gently to the fan shape on the end, the metal forming the perfect oval for her mouth. I watched her throat clench, diamonds at her eyes glinting as she squeezed them shut and wondered if she was trying not to cry.

"Edward found me this one." She batted her eyes furiously, confirming my suspicions and plucked the longest rod from the bunch, the metal starting to rust around the edges. "It's really rare, like a thousand dollar bill." She fingered the fan at the end and chewed on the inside of her mouth for a moment.

I didn't have to ask. I knew just by looking at her that this penny was for that dead baby.

"He cares about you a lot." I spoke around my own clenched throat, surprised by my observation and the fact that it fell out unhindered.

"I know he does. He just has a strange way of showing it." She finally looked up at me, still cradling the pennies and pondered me seriously for a moment. "You know, Jasper stares at you the same way Edward stares at me."

"How is that?"

"I don't know exactly, but there's something different about it. Like he's seeing you for the very first time. Or . . . he's trying to remind himself to forget something." She took a sip of her drink and eyed me ominously. I ground my lips together and shrugged, unable to respond because this tiny little girl covered in a never-ending mural was right on the brink of reading my mind.

"How did you meet him?" She asked with another sip and when I gulped my own, the liquor and lavender combination did nothing good together.

"I sold him a pair of shoes," I spluttered.

Alice's eyebrows perked. "Shop girl, huh? Me too, at one point. He does have amazing taste for shoes."

"Most of that is Rose," I played it off even though her comment sent my heart fluttering, head spinning, and I swirled the tiny sword in my drink. "She dresses me, too."

"Rose? As in 'Moonflower' Rose?"

"One and the same," I chuckled, knowing full well that if Rose knew we were all calling her Moonflower, she'd flip her shit. "His twin sister. She also has an amazing taste for shoes . . . and a flair for treating me like her grown up Barbie Doll."

Alice gave me a once over, her head nodding slightly the entire time. "The blonde from the dressing room? She knows what she's doing."

"That's why I let her continue. But it can torturous, all the parties and dinners."

"I haven't had a reason to wear anything pretty for a long time, so this has been sort of fun for me. We ended up looking just like the locals." Alice rummaged through her giant purse and emerged with a battered notebook, the cover clad in colorful fabric with a geometric print of black and white and blue. The pages looked worn around the edges and she flipped haphazardly through it, flashes of frantic writing and patient drawings appearing just as fast as they came.

"Here," she held out the book, a photograph taped crookedly onto a page and drawn all around with ball point pen, a halo of blooming flowers. There was a group of people seated on a woven straw mat under the shade of a wiry, wilted tree. The desert draped out behind them, a stretch of sand that disappeared far off in the distance, bleakly empty. The group was all wrapped from head to toe in black fabric, the pale soles of their feet poking out and weathered hands folded into their laps. A mere slit in the fabric exposed their eyes.

"They don't like to have their pictures taken. They think it takes a part of them away," Alice twittered and pointed to the smallest figure in the very center. "That's me."

I glanced at the shadow she was indicating, recognizing her eyes from the obscurity wrapped over her face, but I was stuck on the person seated in the far right of the photograph. Edward, staring directly at the camera, traditional garb pushed back around his shoulders. Hair wild and jaw line covered in a scruffy beard, the only one with his face uncovered.

Thin and tan and _smiling_.

* * *

"Ok, this is me." Alice stopped beside a plaque that was a full number before the bungalow I was pretty sure she was staying at, mid-afternoon naps beckoning to the both of us before we were supposed to meet up with everyone for dinner. Esme was arriving this evening and we would be sampling the menu at the restaurant again, a full-on family affair.

"I thought you were staying there?" I pointed down the path toward the next lit up sign, my own villa just beyond it. It had been that particular villa's beach that I'd seen Edward march across to toss her into the water on our first afternoon here. I knew we hadn't drank so much that Alice would forget where she was staying, but she was so tiny, maybe it all went straight to her head.

"That's Edward's." She flapped a hand in that direction and dug her toes into the sand.

"You're not staying together?"

Alice looked at me thoughtfully for a moment before a smirk crawled across her face, diamonds sparkling. "Oh, Honey. We're not together. And as beautiful as he is, it would take a lot more than _begging_ for me to allow him back into my bed."

She winked and scampered off down the path leaving me ankle-deep in warm sand, wondering just where the fuck I'd gone so far off the trail.

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	10. Chapter 10

**TEN**

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Esme found me puddled in the sand just outside my bungalow, next to naked and baking in the last fading rays of sun. Dusk was creeping languidly across the water, the giant golden orb dipping its bottom into the ocean and I knew I was due for dinner soon.

"Bella, darling, you haven't been wearing enough sunscreen." Esme pinched my arm gently, a white spot appearing amongst the pink.

"I look like a ghost. I think the locals are scared of me."

That, or Jacob had a crush. I couldn't tell which.

Esme dropped her shoes beside me and flopped onto the corner of my sarong, tucking her feet underneath her and shielding her face as she scanned the water. She was still in a cream colored travel suit, airy linen with a slim golden trim and looked like presidential royalty trying not to get white sand on her white pants.

"What took you so long? I thought you'd be here before me?" I rolled over, clutching my top to my tits and attempting to retie myself. It must have looked as awkward as it felt because Esme's fingers took over as she spoke, knotting the strings efficiently.

"I had to help Vicky deal with that Lawson Park fiasco. I swear, how that woman got hired . . . I will never understand."

We both ate up our spare time with charity work, landing two of the coveted spots on a board that had successfully revamped several parks in the inner city last year, replacing playground equipment and planting trees. I'd donated a fair chunk of our own money to the cause and I knew for certain that Esme had probably outdone me fourfold, watching Victoria fuck things up was hard for both of us.

"What happened this time?"

"She ordered a slide that was made of metal. _Metal_. I mean, I didn't even think they made slides like that anymore, but apparently they do and she found the only one. Has the woman never used one of those things before? Sliding down a burning hot piece of playground equipment sounds like a lawsuit to me." Esme huffed and shook her head. "Also, the board would like us to both be back for the Mirabell dinner next month. I told them I couldn't promise anything and now that I'm here, I'm glad that I didn't."

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" I mumbled, still slogging through the buzz I got off the lavender-water-drug thing.

"Quite," Esme sighed. "You haven't gone exploring yet, have you?"

"Of course not. I'm too scared of you." Esme was downright dangerous when she didn't get her way and I did not want her on my bad side.

"Good girl. I was worried you'd get so bored waiting for me that you'd do naughty things."

_Naughtier than fantasizing about your son?_

"Alice has been keeping me company," I said with the straightest face possible.

"Alice is here? Oh, I'm glad she was able to come." Esme stood and delicately wiped herself off, adjusting her sunglasses. "I'm sure the two of you will get along famously. Come along, we're going to be late for dinner."

"Have you known her long?" I asked, fishing and feeling a little guilty about it, but there was something different about the two of them that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I lifted myself reluctantly off the sand and shook out my sarong, a wave of pearly white spewing into the air.

"They were undergrads together in med school. She wasn't quite so colorful, but then . . . neither was he," Esme laughed delicately.

"And then they went to Africa together?" It made me feel somewhat better that Alice had been accepted by the Cullens before she ended up covered in ink, though I didn't understand why. Esme laughed as she headed up the beach, low in her throat as if I'd just made a joke.

"Heavens, no. Edward followed her there."

* * *

"You're going to be the death of me."

Jasper startled me from the doorway, leaning up against the frame with his arms across his chest and his lips parted. He was eyeing the dress Rose found for me a few months ago, pale pink silk that shimmered in the light and made me feel a little like a cupcake. "I was wondering why Rose tucked this little gem into my suitcase."

He sauntered toward me with a scrap of rosy satin that exactly matched my dress between his fingers and a sly smirk on his face. I watched as he carefully folded it up and tucked it into his breast pocket, winking at me when he got close enough to take my hand. "Stunning, as ever Bella."

The dress was quite pretty, even if I was a little nervous about wearing it. It was cut slim around my waist and fell in a rather ridiculous mermaid bottom that frothed around my ankles with the slightest movement, but it was the top that had me worried. The silk tended to shift and slip along my skin, the low cut of it tantalizingly near to exposing me were it not for the mass of translucent chiffon flowers, petals velvety soft, obstructing the view. A few blossoms skittered up the thin straps and more tumbled clear to my knees but most were caught in a rash explosion somewhere near my right armpit, giving me just a little bit of modesty.

It was almost long enough that I could go without shoes, but the scar knotted across the sole of Alice's foot kept me from going there.

I took the tie Jasper offered me and threaded it around his neck, knotting it while he rubbed my arms and fingered the petals strewn across my shoulders. The tie was patterned in geometric squares of grays and blues and blacks, his shirt a faint pinstripe and shoes of soft cream suede. He was in one of his favorite jackets, the one that was the dark color of a ripe blueberry with skinny lapels and a hidden pocket inside that he liked to tuck his flask into. His lips were a little chapped, dry and starting to flake and I licked my own lips, launching to my toes to press them damp and moist up against them. He held me to him for a second longer than normal and pulled his bottom lip into his mouth when he released me.

"Come on, beautiful. Let's be fashionably late."

Jasper looped his arm around my waist and tugged me to the door, stopping to pluck my shimmery wrap from the bed and draping it around my shoulders. I tried not to let myself get fluttery over all his outward affections, dangerously wondering if it meant that he was starting to overcompensate for something. We took the long way, walking the path that meandered drunkenly along the southern edge of the island rather than our usual shortcut through the jungle to the main building. I figured that it couldn't qualify as exploring since it was too dark to see much except the ragged gash the moon was slicing through the sea.

"I'm going to propose that we retain the island tonight. Keep it as a long term investment." Jasper spoke through the dark and tugged me closer, our hips together as we sunk into the sand.

"Really?"

"Your face, when you saw the greenhouse . . . it was enough for me. I want it."

"I do love it here, and we're going exploring tomorrow. Anything I should know?"

Despite the faint moonlight only just speckling his face, I could see his smile. "Yes. On the far edge of the island, close to Esme and Carlisle's villa . . . there's a spot near there I think you'll really like. _If_ you can find it."

"Are you challenging me?" I laughed into the dark and he pulled me close just as the faint light from the hotel came into view across the beach.

"Of course, dear. I know that you're up for it."

* * *

Everyone was already seated at our regular table near the windows when we arrived, the night breeze ushering us through the door. Alice caught a glimpse of me from the corner of her eye and went all spin-head/projectile-vomit in under two seconds.

"Ooooo!" She squealed and launched herself from her seat, suctioned into yet another slinky black dress with her short hair slicked down in pin curls. Her dark lips and dark eyes and beautifully embellished skin made her look like a pinup girl, sumptuous and sinfully tempting.

A vixen who sauntered over to tell me that I looked like a fairy princess.

_Great_.

Jasper pulled out my chair for me, sitting me across from Alice, Esme between us at the head so that the girls were clustered together and the boys could discuss the plans for the newly improved boat dock at the other end of the table. I was starting to suspect that they were actually kind of excited about this, rather than put out. From the sound of it, the boat dock was going to end up far more elaborate than the simple planking it was currently masquerading as. I'd never heard of a dock with vaulted ceilings and crown molding before, but apparently it was forthcoming.

Esme and Alice immediately launched into their own sort of planning mode, outlining our excursion for the next day while I adjusted my dress, making sure that nothing was peeking out that shouldn't. Just as I'd deemed everything covered and had taken a sip from the champagne flute that was set down before me, a pretty pale pink with a few bubble-dusted raspberries thrown in, I felt it.

A scalding burn like the sharp heat of an overused light bulb leafing across my neck and I wrenched my eyes up, expecting Jasper.

Edward was staring at me.

Not the faraway sort of staring someone does when they're thinking really hard about something else entirely. This was the staring of a lost desert wanderer perched on the edge of an endless sand dune. Gazing at the tropical oasis/hallucination that his withered brain has just tricked him into seeing.

"_What_?" I mouthed silently and he jerked as though I'd shocked him, dragging his eyes away and flushing red up his neck.

I kept my eyes on Edward for the rest of the meal but he made it nearly through without meeting my gaze again. Instead of watching me, he was now eyeing Jasper. It looked as though he was listening very intently to every word Jasper said, but his eyes roamed all over as though he was searching for something rather than paying attention. When he wasn't eyeing Jasper, he was focused softly on Alice, draping his arm across the back of her chair and turning away from the enthralling conversation about weather resistant deck materials going on beside him to gaze at her.

Alice had been turning something over in her lap all night, face cast down in contemplation and I finally caught a glimpse of what she was holding at just about the same time Edward did.

"What is that?" Edward snatched the seed pod from her hand, one of the brittle horns snapping in half and falling to the table between them. Alice's cheeks flamed, diamonds glinting as her eyes narrowed and she jutted her jaw out.

"It's exactly what you think it is," she hissed.

Edward's eyes went wide at her tone and he openly gaped at her for a moment before he remembered that we were all watching their exchange and clamped his mouth shut, grinding his teeth together. I was pretty sure he was about to obliterate that helpless seed.

"Where did you get it?" He asked her slowly, his voice bottoming out and bordering on menace.

"I found it in Bella's greenhouse."

"_Bella's_?"

That last statement came from three people simultaneously, and Jasper winced as everyone turned to stare at me.

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	11. Chapter 11

**Eleven**

* * *

All I see / are dark grey clouds

In the distance / moving closer with every hour

So when you ask / "is something wrong?"

I think "you're damn right there is / but we can't talk about it now."

**Death Cab for Cutie - Tiny Vessels**

* * *

"It's not my greenhouse," I hedged, withering underneath Edward's eyes, even though nearly everyone was looking at me. He held the seed pod up between two fingers, eyes on fire, gesturing with it. The broken horn made it look lopsided and he was scowling just as crookedly.

"Do you know what this is?" He asked me, voice acerbic.

"Yes, Alice told me."

"I'm sure she didn't tell you nearly enough," he snapped, glancing at Alice with narrowed eyes and she gave him a dirty face which meant he was probably right.

"It's a medicine. But it can kill you," I informed him, sure that he already knew, wondering if I was really talking about the seed or something else entirely. Esme quirked her eye at the unassuming seed pod, suspicious and skeptical, which meant that Alice had told me more than she had anyone else.

"This doesn't concern you." Edward leaned across the table and growled at me, venomous as a snake with lethal accuracy, still brandishing the seed. I tried not to flinch and swallowed stubbornly.

"She misses it. She wants to go back."

Alice's eyebrow wrenched together and she stared hard at me, eyes gone as soft and watery as the baby deer tattooed on her forearm. I couldn't tell if she was happy about what I was doing, or terrified that I was going to continue. She glanced at Edward, wary and silent, and when I finally worked up the courage to meet his fiery glare again, starting to suspect that he wasn't an easy opponent to go head-to-head with, sure enough he looked as though he wanted to jump across the table at me.

He grimaced and tossed the Devil Claw at me, the other horn snapping as it bounced across the table and rolled to a stop in front of my plate. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he spat. "I don't expect a girl in a dress like _that_ could even begin to understand this."

"Edward!" Esme gasped and Alice straight up slapped him across the ear, her eyes gone wide. He winced, clutching his face for a moment before dropping his hand, eyes never fully leaving me. Jasper's brows furrowed together and he glanced at me cautiously before rounding on Edward.

"I don't know what you're implying, exactly, but I don't like the tone of your voice."

"I'm not _implying_ anything," Edward growled. They glared at each other for a fragile minute, copper to silver, before Alice shattered the standoff.

"Edward, is something wrong?" She chanced a hand placed gently on his elbow and he flung her off with his face twisted.

"You're damn right there is," he snapped and stood suddenly, nearly toppling his chair. I could feel his eyes on me but I kept mine firmly on the table, not sure that I could stand to meet his gaze which was burning two molten spots into my neck. "But we can't talk about it now."

He stalked toward the exits, shoulders tense, leaving a heavy, suffocating silence in his wake.

* * *

I found him half an hour later at the very end of the doomed boat dock, his jacket discarded across the railing and his shirt sleeves rolled up. He was leaning on his elbows, hair tossed by the wind and stained eerily silver in the moonlight.

"Can I ask what the fuck that was all about?" I stomped up to him, as much as one can stomp in sandals and stopped in a huff of silk, my own hair gone wild in the breeze. Edward squinted at me and straightened, gripping the railing with both hands. There was a letter etched onto each finger but I couldn't read what it said. There was also a peony blooming on his elbow, a building spanning his forearm, metal rings tugged tight between his teeth . . . and I _hated_ that he was so good at distracting me.

"I'm sorry." He hung his head, chin to his chest and sighed heavily. His hair looked like he'd stuck his fork in an electrical socket this morning, standing on end before falling across his face. He was too pretty to be mad at, but I was going to try my best.

"For what?" I snarled at him, mimicking his own behavior at the table. "For insulting me? Or for treating Alice like a child? Or, maybe you're sorry for the comment about my dress?"

"The first two, yes. The last one I'm not sorry for."

"Of course you aren't." I snapped at him, resisting the urge to cross my arms over my chest, knowing it would just make my meager cleavage all the more appealing.

"It _is_ a rather becoming costume." His eyes fell to my plunging neckline barely obscured with silk and the lip rings disappeared, _again_. He sucked on them intently as he stared, eventually meeting my eyes but only after he'd taken a good and thorough look. I was mostly positive that he was thinking about what was underneath the dress and I scowled up at him, trying my best to stand as tall as possible.

"You seem to enjoy toying me. Like a dog with a squirrel. If I don't die from injury, I'll give in from shock?"

"I didn't mean for all of it to sound as harsh as it came out," he sighed. "My mouth gets the better of me. A lot."

_Don't talk to me about your mouth, dude._

"How's your ear?" I quipped, intentionally backhanded, and he glanced at me with a flash of anger rapidly fading from his face.

"Again, I'm sorry. I'm not used to this . . . _feeling_. It's new for me."

"What _feeling_?"

"I shouldn't even be having this conversation with you." He turned away and shook his head to himself, tracing the edges of his teeth with his tongue and spoke to the ocean instead of to me. "I can't help but want you. Every time I see you, it's just there."

"That's awful Pavlovian of you," I hissed, wishing I had a bell to shake at him just to see if he would drool. He finally turned to look at me, still gripping the railing with half of his shadowed face smirking in my direction.

"_That_ word out of _your_ mouth is positively sinful." He sounded as though he was rolling a chocolate around in his mouth, melting on his tongue.

"You really are the dog." I rolled my eyes, thankful he couldn't see my cheeks go up in flames.

His eyebrow arched. "Are you the squirrel?"

"No. I'm the bell."

_Duh_.

Fate stepped into to solidify my point, the sudden flash of the lights turning on for the evening momentarily blinding both of us, bathing the dock in a golden pool of light that was hard to see beyond. Edward's hair went up in a flame of gold like a penny set on fire and I blinked until his face came back into focus. He released the railing, looking reluctant to do so and produced his pack of cigarettes without looking at me. He seemed to be purposefully avoiding it, actually, tonguing his lip rings and watching his fingers intently as an excuse. I finally got a chance to decipher the letters gracing each knuckle as he moved to light the cigarette, right hand cupped around the lighter, the left perching the cigarette between his lips.

_Open Eyes_. In a soft, spiraled script.

"Give that to me." I gestured toward the smoldering cigarette and he jerked it away in defense.

"I'm not gonna just let you chuck it off into the water," he grumbled.

"I wasn't going to do that." I darted forward and plucked it from his fingers, tucking it between my lips before he could protest. "I was going to smoke it." I exhaled my words, turning them into smoke and watching them vanish into the air. I took a couple more drags before I relinquished my prize, treating myself to a few dizzying lungfuls and feeling instantly better. The nicotine sauntered right up to my lavender high wafting in off the water and invited it to bed for the evening.

"You don't sleep with him." Edward was shaking his head at me as I handed the cigarette back, sounding thoroughly convinced already and I wondered if those knuckles alluded to something more. I tried not to panic but my head was reeling and I wasn't sure if it was the tobacco, the ocean, _him_, or all three.

"How in the world could you ever know that?" I rolled my eyes, unable to conjure up anything but defiance.

"Because I can _feel_ it on you." He leaned in close, smelling of salt and smoke. "The tension. You're practically humming."

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	12. Chapter 12

**You wanted answers - you got them. Though answers typically on lead to more questions . . . **

* * *

**Twelve**

This is fact not fiction / for the first time in years

Lack of Color - Death Cab For Cutie

* * *

"Ok lady, what the fuck is up? Last night was weird as shit and Edward won't talk to me _at all_, which is even weirder."

Alice cornered me in the lagoon when I was topless and, as usual, feeling too heavy to float. As it were, I was lying in a mere six inches of ocean, sand grating my shoulder blades and my butt, lofted only enough to qualify floating but not actually accomplishing it. I was sporting another one of those drunken buzzes I was getting off the salt water these days, the one that I never really got over before it hit me again and I squinted up at Alice, the sun making her impossible to see clearly. An angel or an omen in equal parts.

We spent the morning exploring with Esme, beach hopping along the inner ring of the crescent and inspecting every villa along the way. Seven of them passed our inspection, three did not, Esme determined to overhaul all of them herself.

I understood just what Jasper had been hinting at last night when we finally found it and _he knew me so well_ . . . Just a stones throw away from Esme's private cove was a shallow lagoon that would be prime real estate for a mermaid. Enclosed from the ocean with crystal blue water and rocks speckled in starfish. A few palm trees hung their heavy heads over the water and the wind wasn't nearly as strong from behind the piles of rock cocooning the alcove. A halo of that pearly sand hugged the water and the afternoon sun found Esme curled into a cradle of it, snoring softly.

The water was double-dosed here, my head full of flowers and I was spinning like a drunkard.

I never ever wanted to leave.

Alice plopped down into the water next to me, digging her palms into the sand and staring at me intently. Her hair was wild from the salt water, cheeks pink from the sun and she was wearing that damn purple bikini again. "Something is up. And I'm pretty sure it involves you."

I floundered to a sitting position, hair heavy on my back and fumbled to cover my tits. Alice watched me intently before rolling her eyes and pulling off her own top, tossing it away with a heavy flop into the water. "Better?"

There were barbells through her nipples. _Big ones_, and a white dove surrounded by roses between her breasts. Dandelions sprouted at her elbow and grew up her arm, casting errant puffs of seeds across her shoulder that scattered in a random constellation. They vaulted up her neck, one or two tucked behind her ear and small one hidden in her hair line just shy of the diamonds by her eyes. Esme snored a little from the beach, reminding me that I had nothing to buffer myself with and Alice was waiting for me with arched eyebrows and an expectant look on her face.

_Fuck_.

"I'll trade you," I stuttered. "A secret for a secret."

"One of my secrets?" She put a finger to her chest, nipples just above the water.

"Yes, except I already sort of know it, and . . . I feel like I owe you something in return."

Alice eyed me skeptically. "What secret are we talking about?"

"The baby. In the field," I choked.

Right on cue, her face fell. "How do you know about that?"

"Edward. Emmett sort of goaded him into telling us. He seems really distraught about it."

Alice didn't respond for a moment, nothing but the water lapping up against my skin for what felt like forever, but she didn't seem concerned with Edward when she finally spoke. She was staring at me intently, as though she was working on a complex math problem.

"You haven't said _anything_ to me about it. How long have you known?"

"A couple of days," I shrugged, staring at my toes through the water. "I wouldn't want people randomly asking _me_ about it, if I were you."

Alice pressed her lips together and stared at me with wide eyes.

"Is that what your Kissi Penny is for? The thousand dollar one?" I couldn't help but ask, even though I already suspected. The longest of the metal rods in the cache hanging from her purse that looked like a key. A rare chunk of ancient, useless money that must hold a really heavy soul. She hid it well, but her bottom lip gave her away. Wavering and unsteady.

"I think I made it worse. I gave her too much-" She caught her trembling lip between her teeth and faltered to a stop.

Cue the sobering moment of revelation. Suddenly Edward's overboard reaction at the dinner table made so much more sense.

The Devil's Claw, a medicine best in small doses. The horned seed pod trembling between his fingers. The baby who died from lord knows what. Edward's refusal to return to Africa and all the terrible possibilities that night could have meant for the girl sitting beside me, topless in a mermaid lagoon.

"Oh, Alice," I sighed.

"_Don't_," Alice cut me off. "It's better if I don't think about it. Thank you for not saying anything. It makes me like you a lot more."

"You didn't like me?" I teased feebly, nudging her a little until she finally cracked a smile as she shook her head.

"Not really, considering that Edward came back from some charity dinner and wouldn't shut the fuck up about you. I think he's half delusional. He's been ranting about you for weeks now like a crazy conspiracy theorist. It's starting to get old."

I thought about Edward's knuckles, _open eyes_, and hoped he wasn't a psychic. "I think he's on to us."

"_Us_?"

"Jasper and I."

"Is this the secret? Yours?"

"Yes," I nodded slowly, resting my chin on my knees and really hoping that my silent possession of her secret would remind her to do the same with my own. I liked her, this girl who was so far out of my normal sphere and she was making it really hard to ignore that nagging need to just tell someone that had been getting worse and worse by the day.

"_Aha_! I knew there was something different about you two!" Alice sounded pleased with herself and leaned in close, whispering like the crazed conspiracy theorist she'd just accused Edward of being. "You're in the witness protection program, aren't you?"

"Seriously?" I laughed and shook my head at her. "That's where you went with all of this?"

"You're _not_?" She sat back and studied me like a toddler eyeing its first tricycle, a wrinkle between her eyebrows. "Are you a secret service agent?"

"No," I chuckled, teasing her. "But if I was, I wouldn't be able to tell you."

"Are you trying to get away from someone?" She sounded worried, probably imagining the very worst probabilities in the life of a girl.

"It's not about me," I reassured.

"He's in the mob." Alice moved from fear to certainty and sounded as though she was telling _me_ this. I shook my head and her mouth fell open.

"He needed a green card?" She tried again.

"He's gay," I corrected.

The moment the two words plopped out of my mouth and landed in the water between us, my head reeled again, deceiving light for all its apparent attachment to my body. It felt so strange, saying it out loud like that. I'd never spoken those two words together before, even though I inwardly had to repeat them to myself on a daily basis. It had sort of become my mantra, deceivingly simple for something that weighed so heavily on the great scale of our life.

"Ahhhhh . . ." Alice sighed, turning away to stare off across the water.

"What do you mean by _ahhhhh_?" I mimed, heart fluttery as I watched her chew over my revelation. I had no way to explain why I felt so soft and boneless all of a sudden. It must be the water. She stared off for a long time before she spoke.

"It just explains a lot. Edward is convinced that you don't sleep together."

"We don't." I examined my fingers for pruning. My fingers were just beginning to bump into ridges, palms gone clammy white and I sounded like I was pouting.

"Are either of you sleeping with _anyone_?" Alice gaped openly at me, her mouth in a perfect 'o' of amazement. I shrugged in deference, waving my hands slowly through the water.

"I don't know about him, but I'm not."

"How long has it been this way?"

I scrunched my face up at her, not entirely willing to admit it. "A long time."

"My god, Bella. That's so unfair."

_Was it unfair?_ I didn't particularly feel like I was missing anything, or giving something up. It wasn't a question of having lost the urge, or misplaced the desire. Sure, I spent most of my time lusting after the man I was married to but didn't sleep with, forming close personal bonds with my electronic friends, but I wasn't _unhappy_. He treated me so well, I'd almost forgotten about it.

"I would really like to kiss you."

When I looked up, Alice's eyes were burning, focused on my mouth and I gulped, sure that she could see it, wondering how long I had been lost in thought.

"You kiss girls?" I stuttered.

"Well, I don't make it a habit," she smiled softly at me. "But I'd really like to kiss you right now."

"Why?" I had no idea what was going on, only acutely aware that she was leaning in toward me, metal-speared nipples dipping into the water, covered in pretty pictures and staring hard at my bottom lip with her own between her teeth. The sparrows trapped in her ears were shining and her makeup had gone smudged around her eyes. She let her lip go, glistening in the sunlight.

"Because you're really pretty," she teased. " And I feel like you deserve it."

"I'm married," I whispered.

Alice's mouth scrunched up to the side. "_Sort of_."

"Alice, I can't. I-"

"Would it change anything if I told you that Edward saw Jasper kissing someone yesterday morning?" She interrupted me, looking as though she didn't really want to be telling me this at all.

My mouth fell open, pride a little wounded if I was perfectly honest. "Here?"

Alice nodded.

"Who?"

"Jacob." She bit her lip for a minute, her eyes drifting from my eyes back to my mouth. "I mean, I guess it makes a lot more sense now, but . . . is there some sort of agreement between you? A set of rules?"

I shook my head. I had no answer for her, feeling shriveled up like a slug on salt. Jacob, with his pretty blush and his jet black hair. Bottomless eyes and soft walk. I felt silly that I hadn't seen it before, he was just Jasper's type and it wasn't me he'd been sporting a crush on all this time. I felt strangely rejected even though I really had no right to be. Our only agreement was to be honest with one another.

Which wasn't happening. _Obviously_.

"Ok," I swallowed the word and hoped I sounded sure of myself. "Kiss me."

Alice leaned in, stopping for a moment just a breath away to judge my reaction before pressing her lips to mine. I didn't know what to expect, but certainly not the electric jolt that scorched through me, suddenly boiling hot in the cool ocean water. The breeze was roaring by my ears, pummeling my skin and pulling at my hair as though a tornado had sprung up right over the top of us. I froze upon impact and reacted before I'd even realized what was going on, pressing myself up against her with a sound in my mouth that came out like a groan. Her lips cupped mine, soothing and firm, tasting like mint and strawberries. She put her hand to my neck, dipped her tongue between my lips, and pulled patiently away.

"Wow," I blurted out, clapping a hand over my mouth to keep any other brilliant observations inside until I'd formulated a more proper response, my skin still tingling and my heart galloping like a loose pony. "I mean . . . thanks. I think I needed that."

"I know," Alice beamed at me, looking proud of herself. "Edward's going to be really happy about this."

"What on earth does he have to do with it?" I put my hand over my heart in case it decided to break free from my rib cage, that pony in there determined to live in the wild.

"Because if you'll kiss me, then you'll _definitely_ kiss him. And he wants that worse than I've seen him want anything before."

I huffed under my breath. "Yeah, well, he's the dog and I'm-"

"The bell? Yeah, he told me about that." Alice rolled her eyes. "Insider knowledge here . . . using big words around Edward is like tossing eight balls at a heroin addict. _Pavlovian_?" She shook her head, pursing her lips. "Honey, you sealed your own fate with that one."

"I'm going to tell him to get a tattoo to remind himself of it." I giggled, kind of excited for the moment and what his face would look like when I suggested it. Maybe I'd get more of that hollow cheek thing, which only ever happened when he smoked or when he was trying not to smirk at me.

Alice quirked an eyebrow at me, a secretive smile in place. "He already has a bell."

"He does?" _Weird_.

"Yep." Alice popped the word with her lips and stared at me for a moment with her mouth slowly twisting into a smile. The blue and green diamonds sparkled up against the wicked gleam in her eyes. "It's right next to another part of him he'd _really_ like you to be better friends with."

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	13. Chapter 13

**Thirteen**

* * *

Jasper was sitting on the deck when I got back to the villa, shoes discarded and shirt undone, basking like a cat. The sun was just beginning to set and the sky was bleeding red and orange and yellow into the water, the wind calming to a cool breeze blown through with salt and lavender. He'd been working so much that I'd barely seen him and hated that I was about to ruin this perfect moment with a bunch of heavy shit.

I basically pretended to be a mermaid and made out with Alice.

The sea water really was fucking with my head because all I could think about was her tongue against mine, her hand on my neck, breath in my mouth. She pressed right up against me, salty and damp and hot from the sun, metal of the barbells through her nipples biting into my own skin and-

"We need to talk." I tumbled into the chair beside Jasper and he eyed me warily for a moment.

"I know," he sighed. "Edward cornered me today."

"And what did _he_ have to say?" I asked blandly, not wanting to give away that I already knew but sure that Jasper could see it on me anyway.

"Not a whole lot, actually. He accused me of cheating on you."

"_Are_ you?"

"Not yet." He squared his jaw, obviously trying to be truthful.

_What the fuck?_ Even though I was prepared for the shock, my face slipped. "Jacob?"

Jasper's mouth cracked into a tight smile, telling me far more than his words did. "He's a sweet boy. Too young."

"Have you slept with him?"

Jasper snorted. "We've only been here three days, Honey. I'm not that slick." I watched his mouth tighten down again but his gaze didn't waver off me, fixed and pointed. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you. It hasn't been more than a few kisses here and there, so . . ."

"He's not your first."

I didn't ask, fully aware that he wasn't. Jasper was nothing if not discrete, but I'd suspected a few liaisons over the last couple of years. The exchanged glances over my head, late-night business dinners that sent him home smelling of brandy and someone else's cologne.

"No. But he's one of a _very_ limited handful. No one's ever been serious enough to warrant telling you about." He stared at me intently for a while before he spoke again, voice gentle. "I know that you haven't, at all."

I sighed and rolled my eyes, knowing full well that he was aware of my solo stint as of late. There's not a whole lot of room to hide elephants when you live with someone, even if it is in a mansion.

"Come here." Jasper wrapped a hand around my wrist and tugged me from my chair, pulling me into the lounger and letting me curl up against him. His skin was warm, chest smooth and heart thumping in time to the waves. I tucked my hands up underneath my chin and he wrapped his arms around me, the comforting familiarity of our normal making everything so much more confusing.

"How did you know it was him?" He asked eventually, voice thoughtful as he stroked my arm and I flashed back to Jacob's face for a split second, trying not to imagine them kissing but unable to help myself.

"Alice told me. She said Edward saw you kissing yesterday."

"_Right_," Jasper exhaled. "I suppose that explains his attitude. He tried to kiss me, you know? When he came to me about you."

"He _did_?" I would have never pegged him as the type, but Jasper had taught me not to take anything at face value. Edward was currently putting me through the same tutorial.

His chest bobbed underneath my cheek when he chuckled. "Yes. In retrospect I think maybe he was testing me out, trying to confirm what he saw. But I'm not what he wants."

"What does he want?" I knew the answer to this, too, though I doubted Edward would ever tell Jasper what he said to me on the boat dock.

"You." Jasper's hands stilled and he sunk his fingers into my hips. "He wants you."

"He told you that?" My mouth fell open in astonishment.

_Wrong again._

"In so many words, yes, but I've known it since the moment he laid eyes on you. It's fairly obvious."

It certainly seemed to be the opposite, in my opinion. I felt like I was an agitation, an itch that couldn't be reached somewhere in the center of his back, not the object he was lusting after. I'd never seen him smile at me, only that crooked smirk that made me feel weak-kneed and on-edge.

He saved his smiles for Alice.

"Alice kissed me today," I blurted before I even thought it, lavender soaked mind still stuck in that lagoon with a painted mermaid pressing her tits up against mine and pushing her tongue into my mouth. I had always been terrible at hiding things and was even worse with him. I probably had it written all over my face. _Yep. _Jasper's eyebrows arched dramatically and it took a moment for the sly smirk but when it came, it came on hard.

"Well, _well_, Sweet Pea," he purred at me. "I didn't know you had it in you."

"Cut it out." I slapped his chest, trying to shake her off. Trying not to blush. Trying to play it cool, and probably failing at all three.

"Did you like it?" He grabbed my hand and pressed it to his breast bone to keep me from hitting him again.

"Sort of." I scrunched my face up until I realized that I probably looked like Alice, saying the exact same thing to me when I told her I was married. "She told me I deserved it."

Jasper huffed under my cheek, silent for a moment. His fingers dug into me again when he spoke. "She's right, you do." He tugged me tight before speaking again. "You know that I love you, right? Backwards and forwards and probably more than anyone in the world, except Rose."

"I love you too, but you're driving me insane," I huffed before I could stop myself. My mouth was obviously broken. Jasper sat up and pulled me away to look at me, holding me at an arm's length with his eyes piercing into me until I relented. "What do you think it does to me . . . all the affection? Sometimes it's overwhelming," I deflated like a balloon.

"I could say the same thing to you concerning your penchant for non-existent sleepwear." He gently pinched the skin on the back of my arm, chiding me softly. Point well made since I'd shed my bathing suit for a short sheer number that was just a shade or two pinker than my skin before venturing outside to find him. His fingers left a wave of goosebumps and his gaze left me feeling naked

"You touch me like you love me. And you look at me like you're undressing me." I accused and his blush when his wandering eyes met mine again was more than enough to prove my point. He sighed with a soft smile, shaking his head at me as though he was amazed that I hadn't caught on yet.

"I _do_ love you. And if there is only one woman in this whole miserable world that I dream about fucking up against a wall, it's you. I'm sorry for being so hands on lately, but you make it too tempting . . . especially when I see someone like Edward look at you the way he does."

_I couldn't believe he'd just said that._ After all this time.

I pinched him back to disguise the fact that my insides were fluttering like a pack of rabid butterflies and tried to sound like I was teasing. "Such a boy."

"You have me pegged," he chuckled. "I've done it before."

"I know. Don't think I've forgotten about Rose's birthday."

Jasper scowled at the memory, rolling his eyes. "That guy couldn't take a fucking hint. I had to do something."

_Something_ entailed his fist and a few choice words bestowed upon the over-friendly dancer before he kissed me breathless in the middle of the crowded dance floor and then hauled me out of the club with his hands and lips just _everywhere_. Flung over his shoulder and carted out like a wife about to get her just desserts.

"He was no good for you." Jasper shook his head, obviously disgusted.

"And Edward is?"

"I don't exactly think that he's what's _best_ for you, but I don't think he'll be bad for you either. I'll try to scale back on my territorial side, if you want him."

"Is this the conversation couples have before they go out to a swing club?" I poked him in the ribs hard enough to make him squirm, trying to keep things light but feeling heavier than I had any words to explain.

"I just don't want you to sacrifice anything for me. You've given me everything." He glanced around, the sea and the jungle and the heavy air so far removed from the places we had started from. Studio apartments to a house with five bathrooms. Back breaking jobs to luxury vacations. My old shitty truck to the shiny silver bullet I drove now. I didn't doubt that he would have succeeded without me, but we had done this together, in a way.

"I'm not sacrificing," I told him truthfully and he wrung his mouth up to the side.

"Maybe not, but you're not _getting_ any either," he winked at me. "I'm telling you to go for it, but you're not playing along."

"I don't know if I remember _how_ to play along," I grumbled, chewing on the insides of my mouth and pouting a bit, if I was at all honest. I was bordering up on terrified, nervous and panicky at the fence line of an entirely new territory, clutching the barbed wire and faltering before I'd even climbed over.

"You kiss me just fine, Sugar. Every time is sweeter than the last." Jasper pulled me back into him and settled us against the lounger, his words sparking across my skin. We lay there in silence until his phone started beeping, an impatient Emmett on the other end complaining via text that he was starving. Jasper sighed and set his phone down, holding me tighter instead of pulling me to my feet as I expected.

"Let's stay in tonight. We can order food, relax. It's been a little dramatic at dinner lately, don't you think?"

I chose not to acknowledge his dig at the scene between Edward and I last night. "You want Jacob to deliver our dinner? That's sort of cruel."

"Someone else will. _Please_. I want you to myself tonight."

Something about the tone of his voice reminded me of the morning he begged for my good-luck wishes, the day of his mystery meeting that launched us to the here and now. The strain he'd been under that he'd only barely managed to hide, ditching the tie and wearing his lucky vest as a weak disguise. His face was much more relaxed now, gone so soft in the center that he was almost unrecognizable.

"Ok," I relented, picking myself off of him rather ungracefully to stand. "Order us some dinner. I'm going to shower."

"Can I join you?" He ran a palm up my leg, skimming along my skin until he was nearly cupping my ass. Someday I was going to make him pay for all this nonsense, but for the time being . . . small victories.

"Certainly not. I intend to use your razor and I don't feel like sharing." I put a palm to his cheek and tried not to grin too big as I teased him.

"I basically agreed to share my wife with a tattooed mongrel, and you won't even share my razor?" Jasper joked, eyes bright in the last piercing rays of the sun.

"You're not technically sharing me, Jasper. You'd have to actually use me first."

* * *

2:13 a.m.

There's this thing known as _sleep_ and I totally suck at it.

Always have, probably always will and even on vacation, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I sat on the deck, wrapped up in Jasper's bathrobe, letting my insomnia tangle with the lavender high and Alice's kiss and the way Edward sucked those lip rings into his mouth.

Distilled and packaged in triple strength formula, because now I had Jasper's approval.

He was flopped across the bed in nothing but his briefs, spread eagle and taking up as much of the mattress as he could after I vacated. We'd left the windows open to fight the heat and pulled the mosquito netting around the bed to ward off the bugs. At first, when he wanted to play Cowboys & Indians in the tent of our bed he'd looked like a little boy, face bright with imagination.

Now, sleeping in the grey light from the moon with his curls in his eyes and his back on display, he looked like a goddamn fairy tale.

A false-truth who flirted as much as he withheld, damn him.

I had been selling shoes and pretending to be an author when I met Jasper, but only because it was easier to deal with than my real life. I was chock full of blissful denial, swimming in a sea of abdication, the day-to-day labors of breathing and blinking and existing much easier to deal with when they were the only things you were paying attention to. In the middle of an endless expanse of water, rocked to sleep in a tiny battered boat, drifting from one island speckling my denial-sea to another. Aimless and blown nowhere in particular. Scooping bucketfuls of resentment and longing out of the weakened hull and helping men try on shoes that cost more than a month's worth of my rent when Jasper arrived. He brought a measure of gravity to all of my resigned flailing.

Patched up a lot of those leaks that were threatening to submerge me.

Thank fucking god for that man.

Even if he was snoring.

Jasper rolled over, snuffling in his sleep and throwing his arm out across the bed as if he was searching for me. I might not sleep with the man, but I loved him desperately enough to hold myself to him, whatever that meant. I couldn't imagine my life without him, didn't want to, and had no intention of losing him.

I glanced out at the ocean and for the first time noticed someone standing in the water of adjacent lagoon, a barely visible shadow in the bright glare from the moon. Another figure danced down the beach and into the water, stopping near the first and throwing their arms around them. It must have been Alice because after it was over Edward bent down and scooped her up out of the water, holding her to his chest and making his way slowly back toward the sand.

Leaving a trail of footprints up the beach.

Singular for the pair that disappeared into the water.

* * *

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	14. Chapter 14

**Fourteen**

* * *

I made out with Alice in the mermaid lagoon again.

Esme, much to her mortification, had gotten sunburned yesterday. Probably because she spent more time berating me about it than applying it herself. She was cocooned in her cool white sheets when we arrived and refused to leave the relative safety of her bed, hiding from the sun. The guys were all making a trip to the mainland to file building permits and haggle with contractors, which meant that Alice and I were on our own.

We were back in the water, stripped nearly bare with our mouths on each other in a rushing wave of déjà vu; memory steeped in sea water like a tea bag, leaking salty sweetness. I'd dreamt about her with a mermaid tail all night long and could barely separate the two versions in my head the moment her lips touched mine.

Everything went blank.

I didn't remember waking up. Didn't remember haggling with Esme or even our walk here. Didn't remember tossing off my top or trailing Alice into water and certainly didn't remember asking her to kiss me again.

But here we were. Back at it. Head in a spin.

_Better than any drug._

Was it possible to forget this feeling? I was pretty sure that I had. The overwhelming urge to crawl inside her mouth. Bone-numbing desire that felt like half-melted ice cream. Enough electricity in my hair to make it stand on end and there were sounds coming out of me that I didn't even know I could make.

"How do you do it?" Alice pulled her mouth off mine with a gasp.

"Do what?" I sounded breathless, even to myself, skimming my fingers along her dandelions and waiting for her to kiss me again. Every time I opened my eyes the diamonds set there at the corners of hers winked at me and I was having trouble formulating words, much less coherent thought.

"Play his wife." She licked the corner of my mouth and put her cheek to mine. "Don't you get lonely?"

"Sometimes," my voice wavered, her lips sucking the spot below my ear. "But I'm not unhappy."

"He does love you." She pulled away again, nodding at me so resolutely that I wondered just how good Jasper and I had gotten at pulling off our ruse. It was probably all due to his public displays of affection. Effective and completely sincere. "It's sweet, really. The boy thinks you shit gold."

"I know." I couldn't help but smile a little, because it was true. "He really does."

"But he doesn't take you to bed?" She asked with her lips to my neck.

"No," I exhaled, even though I was thinking about what he'd told me last night. I'd spent so long being irresponsibly in love with him that it was unnerving to find that I might not be the only one. I tried to squash the image of him tearing at my clothes but it clung stubbornly to the bottom of my brain.

"Edward was positively livid when I told him about this." Alice pulled her mouth off my neck with a wet sound.

"You told him?" I stuttered, stomach gone rock solid and heart hammering to a complete stand still.

"I tell him everything." She shrugged, nonchalant, as though it meant nothing all while she licked up the side of my neck.

"Did you tell him about . . .me?"

"Only enough to confirm his suspicions." She grinned impishly and kissed me again, wetting her lips before pressing them to mine and pulling away too soon. "He wants you," she spoke softly into my skin, trailing watery fingers down my arm.

"I know. But I'm sort of terrified that I've forgotten how to do this." My heart was hammering loud enough to deafen me and Alice's face brightened, even in the overwhelming sunlight.

"He's good, you know? _Really_ good. He got me off twice before I even started paying attention."

She was teasing me on purpose, planting a dirty seed right down into the middle of the innocent garden I was trying to keep Edward confined to these days. Sprouting sex/weeds right there between the Forget Me Nots and the Bleeding Hearts.

"You two _have_ slept together?" I asked, fingering the word etched into the crook of her elbow, too blurry through the water to read. She did say that he'd have to beg to be let _back_ into her bed, after all.

Alice shrugged. "The circumstances were . . . special."

I arched my eyebrows at her until she rolled her eyes and continued.

"It was _that_ night," she said pointedly, not needing to explain further. "I was desperate for . . . something . . . other than what I was feeling and I think Edward would have done anything I asked."

"I believe I drew the line at gagging you, though some days I really regret that decision."

Edward spoke from a perch on the pile of rocks just behind us and Alice scowled up at him, red with fury while I blanched white enough to match the sand.

* * *

An hour later Alice was knee deep in the lagoon, searching the bottom for shells. Every so often she'd kneel into the water and pick something up to examine it, either keeping it clutched in her fist or discarding it over her shoulder. Her hair was on end and everything was on display, topless, her bikini bottoms hiding very little. I'd knotted my sarong up underneath my arms as we watched Edward hop down off the rocks and now he was lying beside me, watching Alice with a bemused look on his face.

Hair like a rooster and a two-day shadow on his jaw.

"I thought you were going to the mainland to figure out this dock fiasco with the boys?"

_In other words, what the fuck are you doing here?_

Edward glanced over at me with his mouth twisted into a sly smirk. He was sporting black sunglasses and I was thankful that I couldn't see his eyes. At least he couldn't strike me dumb with them. "If anyone asks, I didn't sleep very well last night. Woke up with a headache."

"That's your excuse?"

"It's the _truth_. After Alice came prancing in my door to inform me that she'd kissed you, sleep was the last thing I was going to get." He just stared at me. Jaw clamped tight and his cheeks hollowed out like when he smoked. Which he wasn't doing, and he definitely wasn't trying to hold back that classic smirk either, which meant that this was _new_.

"And the headache?" I hedged, willing my skin not to flame up out of reflex. As usual, it paid no attention to me.

"A bottle of bourbon. Shared with Alice, of course, but the better part of it belonged to me."

He was oddly bound to her, for all everyone tried to convince me that there was nothing going on. Every move he made around her was purposeful, even the way he watched her crouched out there in the water; chewing on his lip rings with his eyebrows furrowed together in concentration.

"Esme said you followed her."

Edward eyed me furtively for a moment before glancing back out at Alice, shrugging. "She was gone for two months and I worried about her every damn day."

"Enough to go to Africa?"

"Well, it wasn't like she was at some five star beach resort." He rolled his eyes. "She sent me a picture of the first set of nomads who let her deliver a baby. She looked so happy and everyone was smiling, but the guys were all standing around with machine guns strapped to their backs."

"_Guns?!_" I squeaked.

"Big ones. I bought a plane ticket that night."

"And stayed for five years?"

Edward sighed heavily, nodding. "Everything is so much simpler there. The perspective is different. Every possession a family owns, they can carry on their backs and for all their apparent poverty they are the happiest people on earth. It was nice to escape to that side of life for a while."

"And now that you're back on this side?"

"I'm finding it far more enticing than I remembered." He pulled his gaze off Alice and turned it on me, his sunglasses doing little to hide what he was doing behind them. "I'd really like to see that bikini again." He arched an eyebrow delicately, eyeing the knot of my sarong.

"You can't ask for that," I challenged him, forgetting how badly it had ended up for me the last time I did this.

"Can't I?" He purred at me, viciously sure of himself.

"I owe you nothing."

"You kissed _Alice_." He shot back with lightning precision, singing all of my surface area in one easy sweep.

"_You_ kissed _Jasper_," I accused, voice wobbling with confusion. "I don't understand you at all."

"Neither do I." He shook his head, eyes locked on me, biting his lip rings. The skin went white around his mouth and his eyes fell. He fingered the fringed edge of my sarong, a brief glimpse of skin and the silvery bikini bottom coming into view before I snatched the fabric away.

"You're asking too much." I tried to be the slingshot.

"And you're thinking about this too hard." He lobbed it right back at me, giving me no time to react.

"Why did you do it?" I stammered.

"Kiss him?" Edward arched an eyebrow as though he couldn't understand why I'd even ask such an obvious question. "To see if he would kiss me back."

"_Did_ he?"

"Yes," Edward nodded and I tried not to let my stomach drop. "I just want to _look_, Bella," he pushed again, fingering the fringe once more, mere centimeters away from touching me.

"No. You don't." _You want far more than that_. "What if I want something from you in return?"

Edward's mouth broke into the first smile I'd ever seen grace his face, blindingly bright in the blistering sunlight, lip rings pressed up tight against his teeth. He sat up and pulled his t shirt over his head, tossing it into the sand and falling back to his elbows beside me with the waistband of his boxers peeking from his shorts and a faint trail of hair disappearing beneath them both. He gazed out over the water, smile still intact and laughed when he spoke.

"Thought you'd never ask."

He was absolutely _covered_.

Murals of color up his arms, endless lines of ornamental monochrome across his abs, a feather of familiar dandelions gone to seed on his neck. His shoulder and chest was taken up by a beautiful deep blue octopus, trailing limbs sprawling across his back and circling down his elbow, spiraling to an end near his wrist. Another tendril draped across his collar bones and his entire side, from armpit to hip, was a gigantic geometric replica of a piano, black keys interspersing the squares left un-inked.

I didn't know where to even begin to look, so I treated us to some more of that mindless speaking thing.

"Where is your bell?"

"My bell?" He scrunched his eyebrows together as though I was speaking a foreign language.

"Alice said you have a tattoo of a bell. Where is it?"

Edward smirked devilishly. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Just tell me," I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Petulant," he teased. "I might make you find it yourself."

I glanced down at him, a riot of colors and shapes and images blending into one another, and huffed. I waved my hand blindly at the waistband of his shorts and tried to act like I didn't care that much. "I know it's somewhere down there."

"Do you now?" He retorted with a tip of his head, tongue sweeping along his teeth and my heart skittering around like a top at the end of its twirl.

"Alice told me."

"She seems to tell you a lot of things. What exactly did she say about this bell of mine?"

"She said that it was next to something of yours you'd like me to be better friends with."

"Well, she's right about that," he chuckled, glancing back out at her just as she tossed another useless find over her shoulder. "But she wasn't talking about my dick."

* * *

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	15. Chapter 15

**Fifteen**

* * *

I left Alice in the lagoon and Edward brooding in the sand, making my way back toward the villa with my head all _sorts_ of fucked up.

Why did he have to take his shirt off?

I probably could have kept it together if he had, but the reality of all that ink set into his skin did something worse to my brain than the lavender inebriation I had been sporting. It took every ounce of my willpower not to openly stare and I had to leave so that I didn't make a fool of myself _or_ comply with his demands to remove my sarong, all made with burning eyes and those damned lip rings disappearing between his teeth. I trudged across the island, lost in a daze and didn't come-to until I found a note tucked into the front door as I was swiping my key card.

_Have to stay overnight, early hearing in the morning. Back by dinner tomorrow. Love you. J._

There was a bottle of wine waiting for me alongside a shiny, paper-thin glass on the coffee table. Fresh flowers sat near the bed and the towels had been restocked, a pair of clean robes on the hook behind the bathroom door. The note wasn't in Jasper's handwriting and I couldn't help but wonder if Jacob had been here while I was gone.

I added a glass of wine to the general all-around fucked up feeling I was floundering through and fell asleep on the deck for an undetermined amount of time, dreaming about Edward's piano tattoo and Jasper pinning me to the wall in the entryway back at home, right there beside our marriage certificate. I woke up in a blurry daze, knocking echoing from the front door and my mouth gone dry from the sun and the salt.

A small girl in the recognizable staff uniform with a name tag pinned to her chest was standing there, all hair and eyes and more of that beautiful brown skin, holding a covered tray. Jasper must have ordered me dinner.

"Mrs. Hale." The girl dipped her head, her eyes never meeting mine in the first place so I didn't bother to smile at her when I let her into the bungalow. She set the tray down and began uncovering dishes, busying herself. She could have been Jacob's little sister, for all they looked exactly alike.

"I expected Jacob."

"He's on the mainland, Ma'am. In the capitol." The girl kept her eyes firmly on her task the entire time she spoke and I was glad that she did because my face went slack.

_Oh_.

"When will he be back?" I stuttered, trying to sound uninterested.

"Tomorrow evening. Do you need anything else?" She stood before me with her hands clasped and her eyelids fluttering at me and I tried my hardest not to imagine Jasper and Jacob kissing in the middle of a fancy hotel room somewhere.

"No, but thank you Emily."

* * *

Alice showed up drunk and hanging off of Edward sometime around midnight, giggly and light footed. I opened the door, not at all surprised to see her because I could hear her arrival from halfway across the island. She released him and flung herself through the front door, kissing me solidly on the mouth before fluttering away, surprising the shit out of me.

To say nothing of Edward.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked in a whisper as Alice pranced around the room, telling just about every object she touched how much she loved it and nearly tripping over the corner of the sofa, giggling manically. Edward seemed torn between keeping an eye on her or staring openly at me. I was still in that damned bikini, still partially covered by my wrinkled sarong, but I knew just what he was thinking.

"She's been drinking," he said blandly.

I rolled my eyes. "Obviously."

He looked down at me and spoke in a hiss, eyes piercing. "I hear you two have had some nice little chats in a lagoon lately, like a couple of loose-lipped mermaids. Talk about anything in _particular_?"

I didn't know if he was referring to my half of the water-bound conversations, or Alice's, though the accusing tone in his voice hinted that he blamed me for her current state. I still wasn't sure how long ago the whole baby-in-the-field debacle had gone down, but I was fairly certain it wasn't that far off and still fresh enough that it stung when you poked it.

"She said she tells you everything." I accused him and watched his mouth tighten, which meant it was the truth.

His eyes narrowed as he watched her clamber up onto my big white bed and starting jumping. "She's important to me, but it's not what you think."

"_I'm_ not what you think."

_Fuck my broken mouth. Fuck._

Edward's head turned slowly, eyes dragging to my face and he blinked at me, owlish and thoughtful.

"I'm beginning to understand that."

* * *

An hour later Edward was sitting on my couch, Alice sprawled along it with her head in his lap. His fingers were absently stroking her bare skin, brushing up against flowers and scattering dandelion seeds. She was only half asleep, mouth moving slightly as she whispered to herself with her eyebrows smashed together. I'd made her drink a glass of water and knew she was fighting off the spins.

I, on the other hand, had finished off that bottle of wine in quick succession, nervous about having them both in my room and grateful for the soft layer the liquor put between me and reality.

"You both have dandelions." I was staring at his fingers still stroking her skin and the seeds that were dotted up her neck, not bothering to hide my fascination. His lips pursed but he nodded.

"It's not a coincidence. I got them for her."

"Do you have any more for her?"

Edward smashed his brows together, nearly glaring at me and spoke slowly. "I have many that I got _with_ her . . . But that's the only one that's _for_ her."

"Do they all mean something, then?" I waved my hand at him, indicating each individual drawing that was flaunting its face from just below the surface of his skin. He was still shirtless, everything on display and even his legs were adorned. Each of his ankles sprouted an elephant, legs stretched to spindles like Salvador Dali's paintings, spanning the length of his calves and the elephant's heavy bodies were topped with tiny houses at his knees.

"There are a few that I'm not particularly attached to."

Edward gently extricated himself from Alice, arranging her softly back onto the sofa and ambled out onto the deck, hands in his pockets. I followed him, my feet feeling as unsure as the rest of me and only a little of that was from the bottle of wine. I tottered after him, reaching the railing just about the time he was lighting another of those damn cigarettes and the smell of it made me feel twice as drunk.

"Will you share that with me?" I asked, peering down off the deck into the water. Aside from the pearly white gash from the moon, the ocean looked like a pool of liquid tar, thick and black and sticky.

"No," he said and I scrunched my face up at him, not at all expecting him to decline. He broke into a smile as though he'd been waiting for just that particular reaction from me. "But you can have one of your own."

"I don't want my own. I want yours."

Edward swallowed roughly and arched an eyebrow, lip rings tugged between his teeth. He held the burning cigarette out toward me and I plucked it from his fingers, a single drag making me dizzy in an instant. I held it back out toward him, resisting the urge to cough but he shook his head.

"One more. Then you're giving it back to me for good."

Another solid drag and I was thoroughly buzzed, the tarry ocean kicking up a hit of lavender that sent my head cartwheeling. I handed the cigarette back, our fingers brushing and he turned to sit heavily in the lounger, the same one Jasper and I had curled up on when we discussed his infatuation with me, resting his elbows on his knees. Face hard and cigarette smoldering. He didn't speak, his eyes trained on my abdomen before lifting them to my face and holding a hand out toward me.

Hovering patiently between us.

I pushed off the railing, taking a faltering step toward him, stomach twisting with something that felt like hunger.

"What do they mean? The dandelions," I asked with my next step, his hand still hung in the air between us.

"The three celestial bodies. The sun, the moon and the stars." He spoke as he twined his fingers through mine and pulled me closer, tilting his head so that I could see the cluster of flowers on his neck. One was tightly closed and the next was in full bloom, bright yellow petals set against his skin like burning rays of light. The third was a perfect ghostly sphere while the last was partially disintegrated, feathery seeds scattering across his neck and shoulders in a speckled pattern. I touched a finger to the last errant seed of the bunch, flung far out on his opposite shoulder in a spare expanse of unmarked skin just above the furthest reaching limb of his octopus.

"Are they a constellation?"

He nodded as I traced my finger back toward the next seed, set right there above the bump of his collarbone. "Alice's is Pavo, the peacock. Its head is the one by her eye."

I watched my finger intently so that I didn't have to meet his gaze because I knew he was staring at me, my invisible line drifting toward the next puff of grey as though he was a giant connect-the-dots puzzle. _If only it could be so easy._

"And yours?" I whispered.

"Cygnus," he swallowed, adam's apple bobbing. "The swan."

My mouth hung open as I reached the next seed, suddenly seeing the pattern laid out before me. A swan, flying toward his sternum with its wings spread out along his shoulders and its tail up by his ear. I didn't know whether or not to tell him that was my maiden name, the one I'd abandoned a long time ago.

"Why the swan?" I stuttered, mindlessly continuing my tracing.

"Zeus transformed himself into one to seduce Leda." His voice wavered faintly under my fingertip.

"And that's your method? Seduction by disguise?"

"Obviously." Edward's eyes fluttered closed as he let me inspect him. I stepped up right in between his legs and noticed for the first time that the octopus, the indigo blue beauty who sat on his shoulder with her legs spilling down his arm and across his chest was actually clutching the dandelion bouquet in one of those limbs. She wasn't an exact representation of the creature she was inspired by, but a delicately re-imagined version. Sleeker and fanciful, the barest hint of a yellow underbelly peeking through as she clutched his arm and wound herself around his torso. The farthest reaching tendril draped across his sternum and curled in on itself, forming the bright burning ball of a sun on his opposite shoulder. A vast cityscape below the sun coated his arm clear to his wrist. The buildings were warped at impossible angles, gaping windows and curving bits of roadway. Laundry lines strung with fluttering clothing and-

Edward pulled away.

"You left before you finished your part of the bargain today." He leaned back on one hand, breaking me from my enamored examination by tucking the nearly spent cigarette between his lips and sucking on it hard enough to hollow out his cheeks again.

"There's nothing to see, Edward," I exhaled, certain that I was the housewife version of the girl he'd been trailing across the globe for the last five years. Compared to Alice, I was woefully unadorned and probably a boring sight for someone with tastes like his.

"That's just part of the reason why I'm so intrigued." He exhaled smoke and squinted at me through it. "You're sort of fascinating."

"And what's the other part?"

"Alice told me about you. I was right, wasn't I?"

"She really _does_ tell you everything," I huffed, stating the obvious and glaring at Alice who was now soundly passed out on the couch, kaleidoscope arm dangling off the edge. I should have known she wouldn't keep her mouth shut.

"Yes, she does." He sat upright, snuffing out the cigarette and suddenly holding me by the backs of my knees, pulling me closer. I stumbled into him, hands to his shoulders and my stomach nearly bumping his forehead. He licked his lips, tongue soft around the metal hoops and peered up at me through his hair.

"Take it off."

Devilish and taunting, all in one devastating wave.

"Why are you doing this?" I whimpered, near to breaking and I couldn't even remember what I had been holding out for. I had been trying to buy myself time, but this particular hour glass was about to run dry. His fingers dug into my legs and all I could think about were the tattooed letters etched across the top of them.

_O.p.e.n. E.y.e.s._

"I want to be the one, Bella," he spoke soft and sure, eyeing me through his lashes. "The one who gets this piece of you. You've been holding out for someone and I want it to be me."

"You want a lot of things."

"Yes. But right now, I just want to look at you. _Please_." He all but whispered, hands gripping the back of my knees as though he was trying to hold them in place, lest they roam.

_I was done for._

I gripped the knot of my sarong tightly to disguise the subtle shake in my hands, pulling the loose ends free and taking a deep gulping breath before letting the fabric fall. It draped over his arms before puddling to the deck and I stared out over the water, the lavender and liquor and nicotine doing nothing to dull the laser-hot pattern his eyes began burning into my skin. If it had been a tattoo, it would have been a sprawling, graceful trail that spiraled around my hips and left curlicues across my chest.

Feathery markings up my neck and flowery ringlets down my thighs.

His hands never left my knees, though his grip changed drastically from slack to nearly painful depending on his face. The lip rings were firmly tucked away and he took his sweet ass time, leaving no part of me unmarked, leaving a trail in his wake of the same delicate fractals that lightning bolts sear onto their victims.

Scar tissue that was too beautiful to be caused by so much pain.

Alice ended the torture. She rolled over with her hands clutching her face, her hair flattened on one side and her skin gone milky red, groaning Edward's name. His fingers clenched into my knees when she sat up, wobbly and trembling. He sighed and looked back up at me, reluctantly releasing his grip as though it was the very last thing he wanted to do.

"I want to see your bell," I stalled him, poised firmly between his legs so that he couldn't stand without toppling me. It was obvious I wasn't the only bell in Edward's life and I was willing to bargain if that's what it took.

"I'm not going to tell you where it is," he teased, eyes bright.

"I'm going to find it someday," I warned him and all he did was smirk at me.

"I'm counting on it."

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	16. Chapter 16

**Sixteen**

* * *

I woke up alone and disoriented.

Head full of stale wine and nose full of lavender. Still in my silver bikini and already sweating in the early morning heat. I flopped over in bed, squinting my eyes against the light and the very first thing I saw was my sarong lying in a puddle on the deck beside the lounger.

Last night came sloshing back through the muck of wine and spin of flowers.

Edward's hands on the backs of my knees.

My fingers shaking as I undid the sarong. The swan constellation on his chest and the way he plucked Alice up off the couch as though she was a feather pillow, glancing at me once before disappearing out the door with her. I could still feel the faint patterned burn he'd left all over me and lifted my arm up in front of my face to inspect, just in case he really had left a mark.

There was nothing there.

Even though I could feel it, my skin was unblemished. I flopped my arm back to the mattress and tried to fight off the spins which weren't all due to the inebriation. I was too close to giving in. Too close to handing it all over without even the hint of a fight and I was finding it impossible to resist him when he was within reach. Keeping him at an arms' length, gated in that imaginary garden, was only possible when he wasn't nearby and I had to fight every urge in my body that was telling me to slip from my bed and across our side-by-side beaches to find him.

I went on the hunt for Alice instead.

She wasn't at her own villa. Wasn't at Esme's or in the mermaid lagoon. By the time I was trudging back toward the hotel I was beginning to worry that she flounced into the ocean in a drunken stupor last night and found a new group of friends, ones with tails and tits covered in starfish and secret underwater lairs. Just about the time I was getting around to convincing myself of it, I was distracted by a song.

A soft, mournful melody tripping across the sand.

I followed the tumble of notes up from the beach and into the lobby, a lone girl smiling at me from behind the desk. The place was empty, save for tasteful seating arrangements and a gigantic black lacquered piano in one corner. The backdrop was a view of the lush jungle and the song was so much more beautiful inside the lobby than it had been out on the beach. A clear, crooning lament that was equal parts hope and melancholy.

The person making that piano sing was the last one I expected.

Alice was perched on the piano bench with her arms splayed along the keys, fingers to the ivory in a delicate, tripping melody that looked a lot more labor intensive than it sounded. She was in a dark purple dress, strapless with loose flowing fabric to her knees. Her feet were bare, dusted in sand and I wondered how she hadn't learned her lesson about doing that, the jagged scar on her sole asking me the same question.

There was a gigantic black bird etched across her shoulder blades that flexed its wings with every movement of her arms.

I sat in one of the plush chairs behind her, listening to her song and wondering what the fuck had happened last night. I basically got naked in front of Edward, let him inspect me just so that I could inspect him and only barely escaped with my dignity, saved only by Alice demanding to be taken back to her own bed to sleep off her liquor binge. I was counting on his feelings for her to work in my favor and he didn't disappoint, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth for a moment before I faltered a few steps backward and let him slip-slide up the front of me as he stood. Watched in silence as he reentered my room, plucking a soft-jointed Alice from the couch and heading for the door.

He didn't say anything as he left, just looked back at me with his eyes gone dark and hollows appearing in his cheeks.

Alice's song came to a merciful end with a final singing note pealing through the air like a bomb and snapping me out of me head. She sat there with her fingers still to the keys, silent and still and thoughtful.

"That was beautiful, Alice." I smiled as I stood and walked toward her, her face going up in flames when she spotted me.

"I didn't know anyone was listening," she shrugged. "I'm always better when I think I'm alone."

"When did you learn to play?" I expected her to tell me that she'd taken lessons all her life, forced through a childhood of piano-teacher-trauma considering how fluidly her fingers danced along the keys. It looked as though the action was second nature and if I had to guess, I would have bet that her eyes had been closed the whole time.

Alice swept her fingers lightly across the keys. "In Africa. Edward taught me."

"You had a _piano_ there?" It seemed like an odd choice, especially if your selection was limited to what you could carry. I couldn't imagine a camel lugging a piano across the sand dunes.

"There was one at the Embassy and I've played on Esme's a few times, but I sort of like it better on Edward."

"Edward?"

"On his tattoo." She rubbed the backs of her fingers along her rib cage, indicating right where Edward's giant keyboard was. "He'd sing the note I touched."

I set a fingertip to a single key, letting off a high note that exactly matched how tightly I was strung. Imagining her sitting with her knees against his side, fingers to his ribs, his low voice echoing every spot she touched. Pressing out a halting melody that sounded vaguely like Claire de Lune.

_I wonder how soft his skin is there . . . _

I collapsed onto the bench beside Alice and she pressed her colored arm up against my plain one. I tried not to think about the metal pierced through her nipples. Tried not to think about the dove between her tits and the way her mouth tasted. But my mind drifted to Edward and the metal in his own mouth when I wasn't thinking about hers and last night would have probably been a disaster if she hadn't woken up.

"What happened last night?" She rubbed a finger against her temple, tender and soft and I wondered if her head felt as fucked up as mine did. That, or she was reading my mind.

"You got wasted. Edward implied that it was it because of me."

Alice shrugged, eyes falling to her lap. "Sort of. All our talks . . . she just finally caught up with me."

"The baby?"

"Jubilee," Alice whispered, nodding absentmindedly, face gone blank and eyes long-gone.

"You _knew_ her?" I'd spent this entire time thinking that Alice's discovery had been a casual act of coincidence. A randomly chosen short-cut home that lead her across something fate had destined her to find. The doctor miraculously stumbling over their next patient.

"I delivered her. She was next in line to assume her uncle's chiefdom," she said in a small voice and that was it, right there.

_Light bulb. _

The Devil's Claw and her Kissi Pennies.

Two for the mother, gifts from an indigo nomad chief and a _thousand_ of them for the daughter, furnished by Edward.

"I've been trying my best to forget her, but it's harder than I thought it would be," Alice sighed, which it didn't surprise me at all considering that she walked around with those two souls tied to her bag. What could it have done to her, watching someone you ushered into life slowly slipping away from it?

Unable to save the mother and then possibly poisoning the daughter.

The guilt must be unbearable.

We sat in silence for a few minutes while I let Alice adjust, unsure of what I could ever say to make the feeling go away and unwilling to try, lest my broken mouth get the better of me. She sniffed a few times but pulled out of it surprisingly fast, either starting to move onward or denying it altogether. She batted her eyes at me, still a little sad but suddenly strung through with a hint of mischievous curiosity.

"What did you and Edward talk about while I was drooling on your couch?"

"You don't already know?" I arched an eyebrow at her, taking not a single thing for granted, especially the fact that nothing was a secret between them for long.

Alice shrugged, not even bothering to justify it. "He said you made a trade."

_Of course he did. _

"He told me about the dandelions. Let me look at his octopus."

"What did he want in return?" She sounded like she already knew.

"Probably more than I gave him." I rolled my eyes.

Alice chuckled, nodding in agreement. "Did you find his bell?" Her diamonds sparkled and she looked positively evil. She _wanted_ me to find it.

"No, but I finally saw his legs. The elephants."

She made a harsh sound in the back of her throat. "Those fucking elephants," she grumbled.

"You don't like them?" I thought they were oddly beautiful, legs stretched impossibly long and thin. They were reminiscent of her Kissi Pennies, heavy bodies with faraway feet.

"Not _recently_." She chewed on the inside of her lip. "I've been having a nightmare about them."

"_A_ nightmare?"

"Reoccurring." Her eyes sucked into her face, astral and pensive, voice gone slippery and faded. "I'm in the Savannah. The grass is up to my armpits and there's a storm coming. The sky is black and the wind is howling and it's blowing the grass around like the ocean. I can barely walk through it and I'm certain I'm going to get blown away. Edward is there, far off ahead of me, screaming at me to run but his voice is so small through all the wind I can barely hear him. There's a tree way off in the distance and I have to fight the grass to make it there. The rain starts and I finally get to the tree just as the wind picks up even more, so I wrap my arms around the trunk and press my face up to it. It's warm and soft and has springy hairs growing from it and long trailing roots that sink into the ground and just about the time I realize that it isn't a _tree_ . . . something comes down out of the clouds and wraps around my waist. Tears me off and up into the wind."

"What is it?" I choked in a whispered, vicariously terrified.

"A trunk. From an elephant so tall that it disappears into the clouds. It picks me up and tosses me into the storm."

"And then what?"

"I wake up screaming," she shrugged bluntly, as though there was really no other option.

* * *

"Wake up sweet girl. I come bearing gifts."

Jasper's nose ran down the length of my neck, breath and hair tickling my skin and I woke with a start, trying to pull my head from the mercifully dreamless sleep it had sunken into. I'd fended off Alice with claims of a headache, hating that I sounded so much like Edward but unable to come up with anything more plausible on the spot. It was partial truth and I was jealous that she showed no outward signs of her previous night's indulgences. I spent the entire day in bed, Alice's piano melody following me across the island and singing eerily through my subconscious as I slept.

"You're back." I blinked up at Jasper, his face blurred around the edges until my eyes focused.

"Finally," he huffed, flopping down next to me and pulling me close with his lips to my hair. "It turned out to be harder to convince the authorities than we thought, but they came around. _Eventually_."

"Do I even want to know what that means?"

"It was nothing that an expensive bottle of bourbon couldn't fix. You know Emmett can drink just about anyone under the table."

"Maybe he is perfect for Rose." I grinned, fully aware that she shared Alice's near superhuman resistance to inebriation. A talent which I, sadly, was lacking.

"I'm just waiting for the day he slips and calls her Moonflower. She might castrate him."

"Or fall in love," I chuckled. Rose was a sucker for anyone who gave her a nickname. Jasper laughed at me because I was right and pressed his lips to my hair.

"On that note, I have something for you. Come." He stood and pulled me from the bed, patting down my wild hair and looking a little sleep-deprived himself now that I had the chance to really inspect him. There were dark circles cupping his eyes, whites gone a little bloodshot and his lips were pale. He tugged me to the deck and kept an arm wrapped around me as he waved the other out over our lagoon with a flourish.

There was a little boat moored a few feet out, the lilliputian version of a luxury yacht with a partially shaded seating area up front and two seats tucked into the miniscule cabin in the back. It was pearly white to match the sand, the upholstery done in a light sea-foam green and the name of the boat scrawled across the side made me laugh. The script was the unintelligible fancy Thai lettering that looked more like art than language, extravagant shapes that curled over on themselves with squiggled dots scattered here and there.

"Do you even know what it's called?"

"Yes, roughly, though don't ask me to repeat it verbatim. It's an old proverb." Jasper chuckled and glanced down at me, tucking me close. "_To make a sculpture out of water_."

"Water?"

"Yes. Something out of nothing . . . though the man who sold it to me seemed to imply that it was about lies. To be good at telling them, so to speak." He winked at me cheekily.

"Is that what you think we're doing? Building a lie?"

Jasper's mouth softened and he leaned his face down close to mine, studying me intently for a second with a wrinkle between his eyebrows before kissing me softly on the mouth. Brief and sweet.

"Our water sculpture is beautiful, Bella. I wouldn't trade it for the world."

"What are we going to do with it? We can't take it home." I struggled to keep my composure, his declaration stinging deep down inside of me in a way that wasn't exactly painful, but hurt nonetheless. Biting the insides of my cheeks seemed to work, distracting enough to make me wonder if that's why Edward chewed on his lip rings all the time. To keep that steely composure in place.

"This one is yours." Jasper motioned toward the villa with a casual tilt of his head. "Whenever you want it. The boat stays here."

"Carlisle agreed then? To keep it?"

Jasper perked his eyebrows. "I'm quite persuasive when I want to be, remember? _Especially_ after a bottle of bourbon." He ended with a wink.

"And if there's someone who's already booked it? This is a resort, after all," I reminded him.

"I'll kick them out." He grinned like the kid in the sandbox who has possession of all the shovels.

"That doesn't seem like it would be good for business."

"Isn't is obvious by now that I break all the rules for you?"

He took my hand and turned, trotting down the stairs, across the beach and right into the water until we were nearly knee deep. The boat was even better up close, a truly tiny version of something that I was sure came in jumbo size. Jasper lifted me out of the water and up onto the deck, following close behind and letting me inspect the entire thing from tip to tip, which took all of thirty seconds.

"I'll show you how to drive it. It's actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it, though it doesn't go much over five miles an hour." Jasper flopped on the large padded area up front, shielding his eyes from the sun while I sat in the driver's seat. It looked just like that shitty old truck I used to drive, a gear shift protruding right from the floor and a couple of pedals by my feet.

"How did you get it here? Did you tow it?" I gripped the wheel in both hands, feeling like I was on an amusement park ride, rather than my new boat.

"I drove it. Why do you think it took me so fucking long to get back? Emmett swears he could have swum here faster." His eyes were closed heavily against the sun, skin flushing red over his pallid complexion and I knew he probably hadn't slept at all last night. I wondered how much that bottle of liquor and his talk with Carlisle had to do with it, or if his all-nighter was because of something else.

"Did Jacob go with you?" I asked, recklessly toying with Emily's connotation that Jacob had joined the Cullen Corp on their journey to the mainland.

"Well, we did have an extra seat." Jasper's eyes fluttered open and his mouth curled in a lopsided smile. "Someone was suspiciously absent."

"He made up some lame excuse," I deflected. The same one I'd used myself earlier today, but I was planning on forgetting that particular inconvenience.

"I figured. When he didn't join us, I knew why."

"Nothing happened," I shrugged, moving to the seat opposite Jasper in a huff. Not that I hadn't been standing right there on the verge of it, toes curled around the edge of something unfathomably deep. One good shove, and I would go over.

"Why not? I thought we'd agreed that-"

"We didn't agree on anything," I snapped, cutting him off. "I have no goal here."

"Maybe you should." Jasper narrowed his eyes at me before speaking again. "I have something else for you. I was going to wait for tonight, but I'd rather see you wearing them."

"Jasper, you didn't," I sighed.

He just grinned at me and dug in his pocket to hold something up in the air between us. An earring, three delicate gunmetal grey chains hanging nearly four inches long, each bobbed with a trio of black pearls in descending sizes, the biggest at the bottom and all of them polished to a reflective shine. A sparkling diamond was perched on top of each of the smallest pearls and an even fatter one adorned the studs.

He was addicted.

"Why?" I stammered, watching the pearls sway back and forth in front of me, wondering if this is what the mouse felt like watching the snake.

He shrugged, dropping the earring along with its match into my hands. "What can I say, I have good taste in jewelry and you look good in all of it. Plus . . ."

He trailed off, his eyes twinkling in the bright sunlight and his fingers wrapped around my chin, tearing my gaze from the finery in my palm to meet his eyes. For a second, I could have sworn he was close to tears.

"Happy anniversary, Darling."

* * *

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	17. Chapter 17

**Seventeen**

* * *

"Nice earrings."

Alice was staring at the spots where the lowest falling pearl was sweeping softly at the skin stretched over my collarbone, eyes wide and glassy as though she was being hypnotized, arching back and forth like a metronome. I knew the feeling.

"Jasper. He can't help it. He's addicted." The earrings knocked against my bones as I shook my head.

"Good taste in shoes. Good taste in jewelry. Girl, you bagged yourself a winner." Alice winked at me and drug me to the table, depositing me between her and Esme, both of them twittering over my ensemble while the boys all smoked cigars on the patio. I'd worn the draped dress that was the color of a thundercloud, rainy grey and overcast blue. It fell loosely to my knees, held to my hips with a thick black belt and feathery scraps of the whisper-thin fabric at my shoulders fluttered with even the smallest of movements. It sort of paralleled my mood, full of static lightning and boiling just under the surface, ready to crack open at any moment and release a holy torrential downpour.

Carlisle waited until we were all finally seated before raising his glass and toasting to Jasper so efficiently that even _I_ was blushing by the end of it. His rising star, a kid he'd taken an uncertain chance on had proven himself to be one of the shooting varieties. He officially announced the company's plans to keep the island, Esme and Alice finally struck silent in their seats, _and_ his intent to make Jasper a shareholder rather than a top-tier employee.

"Happy anniversary, you two." Carlisle tipped his glass toward us and Jasper leaned in to kiss me, tasting of whiskey and cigars, everyone clapping soundly except for Edward.

As usual, he was staring at me.

Or glaring at Jasper, depending on which moment you caught him in.

The tension between the two of them was practically unbearable. I still couldn't tell if Jasper was mildly attracted to Edward, or secretly hated him. Edward was obviously not a fan of Jasper, even though he pulled his lip rings into his mouth every time he so much as glanced at him which I thought he only did when he watched me. The air spanning the table was tainted with frustration and greed, barely tempered rage and sharpened judgement.

Alice offered me a momentary escape just as our salad plates were being cleared and we hightailed it for the bathroom. I needed to get out of there for a moment, completely unsure what was going on. I stood at the sinks and fanned my face while Alice disappeared into a stall. My skin was blistering red, fevered and warm and I blamed it all on those two boys.

Between the burning tattoo from Edward and the warm heat I always got off Jasper, I was on track to rival the sun.

"That was some toast." Alice spoke up from behind the door and I rolled my eyes, but only because I knew she couldn't see me. "Not everyone seems to agree with Jasper becoming the new Golden Boy."

"Edward," I said flatly, not asking because I knew. _If looks could kill._ He had been launching death glares across the table as though he was playing war. Alice pranced out of the stall and washed her hands, examining herself in the mirror.

"Yeah, well . . ." She pinched her cheeks, making them go pink. "If I had been left behind like that, I'd be pissed off too."

"He got left behind?"

"You didn't know?" Alice furrowed her eyebrows at me. "What did he tell you?"

"That he had a headache. Drank too much bourbon with you."

"Bastard." She scowled at her reflection in the mirror gaze drifting thoughtfully across her arms.

"Why didn't he go?" I asked and Alice's eyes met mine in the mirror.

"His _father_ asked him to sit this one out."

"Carlisle?" I gaped at her.

"Yes, but only after Edward refused to take out his lip rings," Alice snickered.

"He has a problem with them?" I was mostly certain that Carlisle didn't even _see_ Edward and Alice's tattoos, much less care about them. His eyes glazed over them without ever getting stuck the way mine did and for all intents and purposes, he seemed to be accepting.

"Carlisle might hide it well, but deep down he's not too pleased about all the ink. _Or_ the metal," Alice tacked on and unconsciously licked her bottom lip. I wondered if she was remembering what Edward's lip rings tasted like.

"He seems fond enough of _you_." I tried to keep my eyes off her mouth and failed.

"I just rub his face in it," Alice declared bluntly. "Flaunt it, blatantly, because I'm proud of it and he's thankfully come to see that."

"Edward seems secure enough to do the same." He sure seemed to enjoy rubbing his prickly surface up against everything else if you asked me. Just like fine-grain sandpaper.

"Carlisle has a harder time with Edward. And, Edward's always said that if he was ever refused for a job that he was the best person for because of his looks, he wouldn't want to work for the judgmental bastard anyway. Except this time, it's his dad." Alice's face went suddenly slack and she gaped at me under a glow of comprehension. "That's why you're doing it, isn't it?"

Her voice was so small and sure and sad that I nodded halfheartedly.

"More or less. But it's not just Carlisle, there are a lot of them. All of them, really. Even the guy who got him the interview in the first place . . ."

Marco, or Marcus or some other M name. He was our passport to the upper-crust we were currently masquerading through, aging generations of men with every flavor of wife and not a care in the world as to what that wife did behind their backs just so long as there was something pretty to hang off their arm when needed. One good word from M and Carlisle was sold, Jasper sucked into the wave and even I'd gotten caught up in the drag. Pulled out to sea in a riptide of wealth and privilege and secrets. I liked to think that we were using them, brushing ourselves roughened edges up against their soft ideals in a secretive, naughty sort of way but really . . . we were both just catering to their desires.

Rewarded, generously, but only after a significant sacrifice.

"Edward and Jasper have more in common than they think." Alice sounded as though she was seeing the future and drug me out of the bathroom before I had time to ask her what she'd seen.

* * *

I snapped out of my lavender high to find myself staring at Edward's arm.

Esme had begged out directly after dessert, still nursing her sunburn and dragging Carlisle along with her. Emmett had spent most of the evening with his phone firmly attached to his ear, pacing the patio with a big goofy grin on his face and I had the sneaking suspicion that he was talking to Rose. We'd vacated the restaurant for the piano and I was lying up against Jasper on one of the big couches, letting Alice take the stage.

Her black bird flexing its wings in a slow-motion glide as she played.

Ravens were know for collecting shiny objects and being too smart for their own good.

She repeated the same song I'd heard her play this morning before moving onto another tune that was much more lighthearted than the previous melancholy. She faltered halfway through, getting caught up on a finger-numbing series of notes that tripped her every time she tried to move beyond it. Edward ended up leaning against the side of the piano, coaching her softly through it until she mastered the progression, his elbow resting on the lid and his feet crossed at the ankle.

He still looked uncomfortable in his business attire, stiff in his button downs and shiny shoes as though he felt forced to assimilate. His shirt sleeves were pushed up again and I'd only just noticed that the bottoms of the buildings on his left sleeve stopped mid forearm in a trio of thick black bands. They were strung with dangling light bulbs, all of them falling unevenly down his arm and onto the back of his hand. The bulbs were all different shapes, small and large, plain and ornate, some burning brightly while others were burned out entirely. A tapered chandelier bulb graced the side of his palm, another rather standard one sat heavily on the soft inside of his wrist. The lowest falling nosed up on the knuckle of his ring finger, a curved art-deco bulb that was neither alive nor dead.

_Dormant_.

Jasper's grip on my hand suddenly clenched down hard enough to grind my bones together and I tried not to hiss in pain as I wrenched my eyes off Edward.

Jacob was standing in the entryway.

Hands clasped together and his eyes on his shoes. That beautiful caramel skin and his eyes gone golden. I glanced at Jasper who tore his eyes off Jacob with his lips pressed together to peer at me. He was obviously torn, poised to bolt although he didn't relinquish his death grip on my hand.

Wanting to go, but unwilling to leave.

"Go." I mouthed the word silently and meant just for him, Alice's song swallowing up all the loose noise. He gulped and pressed the back of my hand to his lips hard enough that I could feel his teeth behind them, cupping his hand to my neck and pressing all those pearls into my pulse, hard and hot.

"I fucking love you," he whispered as he stood, his palm slipping from my face and he walked briskly toward Jacob. I caught a two-second glimpse of the wide, easy smile that blossomed on the boy's face before I forced myself to tear my gaze away.

Edward was staring at me again.

Looking angry enough to overturn the piano.

He glared in the direction Jasper had disappeared, then back at me, still puddled in my cloudy grey dress on the couch where I'd been left. He pulled his eyes away and scowled at the floor in front of him for five solid seconds before rounding on his heel and storming out the doors toward the beach, blowing by Emmett and disappearing into the dark.

Alice's song stumbled to a halt the moment Edward stomped off, her eyes finding mine in confusion. She'd missed everything, Jasper's departure and Edward's sour faced stalk out the doors. I shook my head at her, unable to put my situation into words and really wishing she'd just put her mind-reading powers to work and explain the enigma that threaded through my life tightly enough to render it completely unreadable.

* * *

She took me home with her instead.

Plucked me from my spot on the sofa, reassuring me that my legs would work and talking me through the darkened jungle, distracting and giggly and holding me upright most of the way. Her villa was done up in gold and silver, wood floors that were nearly white and creamy gold furniture atop a star colored rug. Her bed was rumpled, gold coverlet discarded on the floor and the pillows scattered across the mattress, the entire thing draped in more of that ever-present mosquito netting. The layout was similar to mine, though a bit smaller and set lower to the ground. The large glass doors opened right up to the smooth sand, potent ocean water lapping at the beach not four feet from her door.

The counter in her little kitchen was clustered with a collection of rounded clay pots, all roughly the size of baseballs with lids nestled into the tops. The surface of each one was spiked with little bumps of clay, rough and pebbled and I picked one up, surprised at its weight.

"What are these?" I marveled, examining the pot. Each individual bump was coated in the fading pattern of some stranger's fingerprints, set there forever into the clay.

"My medicine pots." Alice fingered the stippled surface lovingly. "I keep my jewelry in them now."

"They're for medicine?"

"The spiked surface . . . warns that the contents could be dangerous, you know?"

I lifted the lid off the little pot, sparkling silver and hints of onyx earrings inside. They were extraordinarily large, all the size of silver dollars, some with pretty patterns and others just simple hollow rounds. One pot held her spangled hair clips, another the replacements for the diamonds by her eyes. The last pot, the smallest, closer to the size of a tangerine, held the Devil's Claw.

Both horns were broken, making it look vulnerable and weakened in its hollowed out hiding place.

"Why did you keep it?" I fingered the seed pod, rolling it around with my finger.

Alice shrugged, tonging something in her mouth that looked as though it tasted bad. "I wanted it. I don't know why."

"Edward seemed to think that was a bad idea." So did I, now that I knew.

"He has issues," she grumbled.

_Under fucking statement. _

"Care to elaborate?" I huffed.

"He's angry about a lot of stuff." More shrugging.

"You're being annoyingly vague."

Alice sighed heavily and cocked her head to look at me, jaw defiant for a moment before she softened. "He didn't want me to use anything traditional. He wanted antibiotics and bags of fluid. He didn't agree with my decision."

"And he's holding it against you?"

"No. But, I think he wants to." She shoved the medicine pot she was fingering back amongst its companions and took my hand, eyes on the verge of watering, glistening right up against her diamonds. "This is too heavy for me right now. Let's go for a swim?"

"I don't have my suit," I stumbled, caught off guard by her drastic change in direction, surprised by her blunt acknowledgement of her incapacity to handle that recently buried trauma. She did this to me a lot.

"It's just me." She smiled cheekily, having seen most of it already. "Besides, it's dark out. No one will see."

I probably would have refused again, come up with some lame excuse but she perched up on her toes and kissed me, open mouthed, hot tonged and fully fucking persuasive. I melted into her without meaning to, my hand between her shoulders blades to keep her close and my head nodding dumbly along when she pulled away with the silent question on her face.

We left a trail of clothing behind us, shedding skirts and tops, dresses and bras into the sand. The silvery moonlight made all of Alice's tattoos look twice as dark, a spotted leopard slipping into the ocean. The water was surprisingly warm, bath water rather than the vast chilly sea and my muscles went slack in an instant. The lavender kick was twice as potent in the dark and I submerged myself completely, coming up for air in a gulp, Alice's fingers already finding my skin.

Head already swimming around in a boiled down goo of kisses and drugs.

"What happened back there? Everyone left in the middle of my song." She pulled me up close to her, our feet meeting in the sand, her skin even warmer than the water. She pushed all my hair out of the way and planted her lips in a trail up my neck, my head reeling from her, or the lavender. Maybe Jasper's whiskey-flavored kiss, or the pain from Edward's flowery scars.

"Jacob showed up. I told Jasper to go with him," I whispered haltingly.

"And Edward?" She prodded.

"Wasn't happy about it."

I kissed _her_ this time. A first. Mostly just to shut us both up and partly because I didn't want to think about Edward anymore. I lunged at her mouth with my own wide open and ready, trapping whatever she had to say between our tongues.

Each time we did this, it only left me wondering why I thought I could ever do without this feeling. What had possessed me to believe that I could go it alone like I'd been, drifting through life without even simply enjoying it? This was unparalleled, something that couldn't be glossed over or replaced by a saccharin substitute. Alice pulled me close and let her hands roam, swimming over my hips and up my sides. Sending my insides shivering with her palms to my tits and fingers held firm to my ass. Every single inch of me was on fire despite the water, an impossible mixture of the two.

Calm water to boiling churn.

Collected girl to panting, needy mess.

Thoroughly doped up on eau de ocean and boosting it with hits from whatever medicated bliss Alice kept a stash of underneath her tongue.

I trailed Alice into her villa nearly an hour later, dripping wet with sandy feet and my mouth full of her taste. She had a thick garter belt banding her right thigh, satiny violet ink that looked so real I was tempted to reach out and touch it, sure that I'd feel rumpled ribbon beneath my fingers. There was an elaborate laced border on either side that was done in white and pale grey, delicately sheer against her skin. A silver handgun was tucked beneath the belt on the outside of her thigh, short and squat and just the right size for her hand.

Just as I was about to confirm my suspicions and get my fingers on that silky ribbon, a shadow across the room stopped us both in our tracks. Edward sauntered out of the bathroom in nothing but a pair of grey slacks and a bunch of splashy pictures, a half empty bottle in his fist and his hair rioting against him.

Shirtless and hollow cheeked, tired eyes finding me like a goddamn homing beacon.

"What are you doing here?" Alice stopped so short I all but ran into her and she just stood there while I tried to ungracefully shield myself behind her. I was still convinced that Edward's eyes could burn tattoos of scar tissue into my skin if I let him look at me too long and I was glad I had so much hair, letting it drip all around my feet and cover most of my tits like a shield.

He stared hard at her, then me, face compacted and mouth tight.

"Waiting for you."

* * *

**AN:** Truth be told, I've been ten chapters ahead of you this entire time, trying to keep up with the voices in my head, which is why I've made no promises.

**Now, I can safely say:**

**If you aren't legal, don't like boys kissing boys, or girls kissing girls (or combinations of those boys and girls kissing each other) it's time for you to vacate this train. **

**_reviews = love_**


	18. Chapter 18

**18**

**You always played too rough / so hard you drew blood**

**Never enough - JJAMZ**

* * *

Alice pranced right up to Edward, naked as all get out and with not nearly enough hair to cover much more than the tips of her ears. Edward's eyes roamed appreciatively over her as she approached but soon found her face and stuck firmly there, mouth pulling laboriously into a smile as she plucked the half empty bottle from his hand. I wondered if this was common for them, half naked and mostly unfazed. Alice took a healthy gulp from the bottle as Edward turned away, stepping into the kitchen and rummaging for two glasses in the cabinet, offering me a three second glimpse of his back.

He was bracketed by two giant telephone poles, from shoulder to hip that disappeared completely into his waistband. The pole on the right was a bit taller than the other, the wire draped between them weighted down by a single, wide-eyed owl.

I blinked and his face was back.

"Bella? Care to join us?" He tipped one of the glasses at me, eyes searching my face, looking like he fully expected me to decline.

I nodded mutely and padded toward the countertop, trying to forget that I was naked except for Jasper's earrings and in the presence of the two people who confused me more than anyone else in the world. I stepped over the pool of my storm-cloud dress as Edward set the two glasses down and Alice poured a fair dose into each, offering me one and clinking the edge of her glass against my own in salute.

"Where's your glass?" I asked Edward, holding mine out to meet his.

"I'm more of a bottle type." Edward winked at me and knocked the bottom of the bottle lightly against my glass. He pressed the open mouth to his lips, tilted his head back and took a deep swallow, lip rings tapping the glass. Smooth and unmoved by the throatful of fire. Just like Jasper.

I took a stinging gulp from my glass, kicking back my nerves.

"You abandoned me in the middle of my song." Alice narrowed her eyes at Edward and his mouth tightened, gaze finding me for a split moment before launching back to her.

"I had to get of there. Sorry."

"Where'd you go?" Alice asked just before she tossed her drink back in one mouthful, wincing around it before she swallowed and Edward rolled his eyes, managing to avoid my gaze.

"This island is too fucking small. I walked the entire thing twice before I ended up here."

"And you chose to wait?" She pestered and fascinatingly enough, he reddened around his ears.

"The trail of clothing." Edward's eyes fell to the floor which was littered with our breadcrumb path of discarded clothing, my bra dropped right on top of Alice's. "I figured I'd bide my time."

Alice reloaded her glass, I finished off my first and Edward took three more solid gulps from the bottle before he apparently couldn't take it anymore and finally turned the full force of his laser-beam stare on me.

"Why did you let him go tonight?" He sucked in his cheeks, chewing on his lip rings and gripping the neck of the bottle so tightly I was worried it would shatter in his hand.

"He wants it," I shrugged, head swimming and eyes firmly on his hand wrapped around that bottle.

_O. P. E. N._

"And you comply so willingly . . ." Edward shook his head, sounding amazed, which was probably accurate considering that I'd been fighting him since we met.

"I'm flexible." My retort was flat and hesitant, as though I didn't really believe it even though I wanted to. I could feel the paisley pattern he was burning into my sides, scalloped petals blossoming down my arms.

"Is that _really_ so?" He asked skeptically and I nodded far more enthusiastically than I felt, firming up my face in an attempt to be sincere.

Edward rounded the countertop, fingers skimming the granite as he headed toward me and I would swear to you that the full-body mark he left on me yesterday burst back into flames, combusting internally. I was so stoned off the seawater, head gone so gooey from the liquor that I could do nothing but stand there and helplessly watch his advance. He stopped right in front of me, set his hands to my hips and lifted me to the counter, my feet in the air and my ass to the cool granite before I had time to react, looking me sternly in the eyes.

"In that case, I want you to do something."

"You always want something," I stumbled, trying not focus too much on his mouth and those lip rings or the ink dancing around his collarbones and crooked buildings tumbling down his arm. He made it nearly impossible, abs covered in a mirrored pattern that looked haphazard and important, symbols strung together in an intricate dotted pattern that danced along the v of his hips.

"True," Edward nodded, not even bothering to try to deny it.

"What is it this time?"

"Kiss her." Edward's eyes darted to Alice and then back to me. Still gripping my hips. Still pulling in his cheeks and still burning me with his gaze. Tendrils of leafy vines around my eyes. Delicate flowers blossoming down my neck.

"You make it sound like a demand." I tried not to squirm, skin on fire.

"It is."

"You have no right to do that." Alice grumbled, arms crossed over her chest, eyes zeroed in on Edward hot enough to scald.

"This is for her. _Not_ me. _Not_ you," Edward spoke lowly. "Besides, you've been doing just that in your secret lagoon for days now. It's not like I'm asking you to do anything that complex."

"That doesn't change anything," she snapped. "I _know_ you. You're a _taker_. You're not the type to just sit there and watch."

"You have such little faith in me. It's kind of insulting." His fingers dug into my hips and he glared at her, jaw hardening. "I got you off twice before you even realized it. _Your words_. How many times was it _after_ that?"

Alice scowled at him. "Four."

"_Four_?" He arched his brows, looking pleased with himself. "And yet you call that taking."

They stared hard at each other for a moment, the arches of my feet brushing the fabric of his pants and his hands still firm on my skin. This was the second time he'd held onto me like this, tight and deep, as though he was unsure what his fingers might do if he released his grip.

He smelled like browned butter and pink sea salt.

Alice finally rolled her eyes, breaking their staring contest and Edward glanced down at me again. I kept my eyes firmly on his chest, the trailing limbs of his octopus and the dancing pattern of dandelions seeds.

"Bella?" He asked, breath falling across my face. "I'm not asking to be involved. At least not tonight."

"Why?" I shook my head in confusion, trying to ignore his palms nearly burning my skin, _trying_ to focus on the dandelion seed tucked into the hollow that dipped in his collarbone. "I don't understand."

Edward shot me a devious sort of smile, his lips curling in the corner of my vision. "Because I'm _fascinated_. And angry. And so fucking spun on you. What I said before still stands. I just want to _look_."

"Anything else?" I huffed, finding some small amount of courage and finally looking him in the eyes. He was so close I was sure he could hear my heart skittering around in my chest, thumping wildly and stopping all together just long enough to make me worry that I was dying.

"Just one more thing," he said, voice softer than it had been all night and his tongue found his lip rings again.

"Just one?" I asked, still trying to sound cynical but probably sounding breathless.

"Kiss me, first."

I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth out of pure gut reaction and his eyes plummeted along, going soft and blurred behind his lashes. There was the faint hint of his five o'clock shadow sprouting along his jaw line, throwing the edges of his face into sharper relief and I was pretty sure I was stoned stupid by now. Mildly drunk and completely wasted on temptation.

Terrified to want him so badly.

Unable to help myself.

He was obviously just as good at reading my face as Jasper because he fell on my mouth without really bothering to confirm my compliance. He sucked my lip out of my mouth, rough stubble with a nearly painful bite from the rings through his lip, bruising mine between metal and bone. My breath caught in my throat and he held on hard for just long enough to be thorough before softening, going pliable and warm, licking the sore spot he'd left behind. Pushing his breath into my mouth and finding my tongue, stepping right up to the edge of the counter to hold my face still.

My heart wasn't beating _at all_.

Silent and still for far too long before kick-starting itself into a manic sort of overdrive. Leaping along like that pony was on speed and putting spots behind my eyes.

Dizzy and grounded.

Spinning though I was motionless.

He pulled his lips from mine slowly, hovering just over my mouth for a moment before straightening, removing his hands from my face and then my ass. My lip was throbbing and hot, sore to the touch and he glanced at it with a tempered grin, sucking his lip rings into his mouth for a moment as though he was trying to hide the weapon before he spoke.

"That looks good on you."

* * *

**AN:**

Double whammy because I'm up for **Fic Of The Week** at **The Lemonade Stand**.

My ego hasn't fully lifted off yet, it needs a little more helium. I hear votes are chock full of that . . . ;)


	19. Chapter 19

**Nineteen**

* * *

I woke up in Alice's bed when the sun got too bright to ignore, draped in a gold coverlet with a tattooed girl cuddled up against me. We were both still naked, both covered in a dusty sheen of dried up salt and Edward was nowhere to be seen. I half expected him to be flopped across the foot of the bed, our toes to his stomach but he was nowhere to be seen and I lay there, letting Alice breath into my neck and wondering what the fuck had even happened last night.

I'd let her kiss me thoroughly flushed and panting _right in front of him_.

Gave into the wicked temptation to just push my tongue into her mouth and go after whatever drug it was she had hidden there in her mouth, but only after I got a taste of Edward's particular brand and addiction flared to life on my tongue. Belly flopped face first into a sticky pool of unresolved lust, my skin stinging from the full body contact and when he pulled away, Alice was staring at my mouth.

The twin bruises blooming on my lip.

She sucked her own lip into her mouth, most likely aware of exactly how it felt and her eyes met mine, solemn and round and full of questions, giving me every opportunity to stop this. Asking for my permission. She was so pretty, and I wanted her badly enough that I was willing to overlook Edward's voyeurism.

Only after I managed to nod at her did she finally give in.

Alice took another gulp straight from the bottle and glared at Edward as he pried his fingers from my skin and moved away from me, holding the nearly empty bottle out toward him as he neared. Avoiding his gaze completely when they exchanged.

"You're explaining this to Dayo," she said harshly. I had no idea who or what a _Dayo_ was, but Edward seemed to, tipping his head in acknowledgement as they swapped directions fluidly.

Two ships passing in the night.

I kept my eyes firmly on Alice's sparkling diamonds in order the to keep my head away from the half-naked tattooed boy who was still working industriously on that full-body filigree of mine. She planted her hands on the countertop on either side of my legs, fingers clutching the granite and I ran my hand down her floral arm, day lilies and strawberries under my touch. Snails and butterflies and a rabbit in a straw hat. Ferns and feathers and the towering dandelions. The peacock constellation of seeds across her chest that was mirrored by the literal bird draped down her side. Her other arm was shockingly bare in comparison, pale skin spotted with freckles and I tilted my head to finally decipher the single word tattooed there in the crook of her elbow.

_Heaven_, the _n_ bleeding down the length of her arm and ending in a messy pool of ink at her wrist that made my stomach roll. I set my fingers over the word to break my gaze.

"Alice . . ."

"Not now," she breathed, wetting her lips and pressing them gently around my nipple, sucking me between her teeth and I hissed, arching toward her without even meaning to, fingers sinking impossibly into the skin of her arm. I could feel the sharp edges of her teeth and Alice licked solidly along the underside of my breast as I exhaled heavily, trembling from head to toe.

"You always taste good." She murmured with her lips brushing my collarbone and I swayed into her when she finally put her mouth to my neck, burning hot and freezing cold. Ice cubes and embers up my neck and across my cheeks. Cauterizing and cooling, scalding and soothing all in one.

Barely tolerable.

I clutched her face in both hands and tried to come capture her mouth the way I'd done in the water, but my head was spinning dizzily along after me like the last left-behind seed off her dandelions and she was having none of that. She planted a hand firmly between my tits and pushed me away hard enough to set me back on my palms.

Edward groaned behind me.

I'd nearly forgotten about him.

"Will you shut _up_?" Alice hissed at him and leaned in to kiss me again, her tongue between my teeth and a sigh in the back of her throat. She pushed her hips against the lip of the counter, her hand fluttering down the entire length of my front, skittering down my stomach and whispering into my pubic hair, licking her lips and going glassy-eyed.

"Not that," Edward growled and I glanced back over my shoulder at him the same time Alice did. He adjusted himself gingerly but didn't linger, deliberately setting his hand back around the neck of the bottle with his teeth crushed together, staring at us intently.

She pulled slowly away from me, fingertips feathering across my hip bones and glared at him.

"I thought I told you to be quiet."

"Just . . . leave me that. _Please_." His voice sounded strained, tempered under thinly veiled restraint. Alice rolled her eyes, still flushed around the edges and wrapped her arms around my waist, wrapping my hair around her fist and using it to pull my chin back. She licked a fine, slow line up my throat, pressing her bar-belled nipples into me and sighing into my jaw.

"You're really going to dictate how this goes?"

No response. Dead silence.

Other than the singing my skin was doing under her touch.

I was a minefield of sensation, explosions that burst to life just below the surface, each more intense than the last and none of them within the realm of comprehension. I was so scattered, there was no hope of understanding any of this. There was only her. Her mouth peppering my neck. Barbells brushing my skin. The peacock feathers on her hip skewing under my grip when I held on to ground myself. The way that she smelled like Edward, but spicier; a searing hot chili added to that slow-cooked butter. Her grip on my hair forced my eyes to the ceiling and her mouth was adding lip-shaped petals to all the flowers Edward had burned onto me.

I had no intention to do this, right here. Right _now_.

But she didn't ask my opinion.

Instead, she led me up to the crumbling lip of that elusive cliff and allowed me a moment to really appreciate the faraway bottom before giving me a violent shove over the edge. A sharp crack of sound rang out around us, Edward's palm meeting the granite countertop hard enough to crack the ancient stone the same moment I cratered face first into the earth.

* * *

Alice and I found the sea lion later that day.

We'd begun referring to our mermaid lagoon as Secrets, as much for its location as for all the whispers we'd exchanged there. Not a single day had gone by that we didn't pay it a visit, the water warmer and the sand softer there than anywhere else on the island.

"Stop." Alice grabbed me by the strings of my swimsuit, the knot unravelling in her hand and I came to a halt in the sand, wondering if she was going to start up again before our feet even touched the water. Instead, she pointed over my shoulder and I noticed the new rock that had planted itself in the middle of the beach.

Rough and enormous and _breathing_.

It was flopped into the sand, looking ungraceful and clumsy out of the water, a bloated body with sadly lacking flippers that seemed better suited for a creature half its size. Its skin was mottled brown and black, covered in algae and barnacles, kelp caught in the whiskers of its beard. The sea lion was covered in scars, his surface etched with the sprawling evidence of long ago battles. Judging by the basic principle that scars are often much smaller than their original wound and the puckered pull of skin at the jagged edges of the marks across its back, this particular lion had seen some pretty serious shit in its life.

One puncture wound was now easily the size of a dinner plate.

We tiptoed back to the edge of the beach and nestled ourselves in the sand up against the rocks. I laid my head in Alice's lap and let her braid through my hair while I fingered the feathers tumbling down her leg, watching the steady rise and fall of the sea lion's breathing.

A breeze skipped across the water sent a spray across the sea lion's back, the creature jerking awake within a fraction of a second. It eyed its surroundings menacingly, grunting and huffing and just generally looking like the most terrifying creature to have ever existed until it decided that there was no immediate threat. It flopped back onto its side and was asleep as quickly as it had woken, a near-smile on its puppyish face.

A fearsome predator, taken out of context.

"Did you ever see a lion over there?" I asked, eyes on the ocean version of the cat I could see stalking through the Savannah. Alice dropped the whisper-thin braid she'd just finished and it fell across my throat, already starting to unravel at the end.

"A couple of times. Mostly in the dark."

_Ugh, terrifying. _

"Never up close?" I asked, trying to forget about the infrared nature programs shot in the dead of night, nothing but murky moving shadows and glowing green orbs floating above a fresh kill. The only indication of the monsters cloaked in midnight.

"Well, Afua, but I don't think he counts. Edward would probably disagree."

"What's an _Afua_?"

Alice laughed out loud, starting a new braid. "There was a village we stayed at for a nearly a year in Ethiopia . . . they had adopted a lion who was abandoned as a cub. It became a group effort, the whole community raised him right there in their houses. He wandered the one little street with the dogs, let all the kids crawl all over him, guarded the goats at night. The villagers thought he was good luck."

"Was he?"

"He never _ate_ anyone." She shrugged, making it sound like that was the only condition that had to be met if you were to live as a lion amongst men.

"The lion who thought he was a lamb," I mused.

"Wild animals can be domesticated. Sometimes even nature has to take a backseat to love." Alice chuckled and I couldn't help that I thought of Edward, feral and fascinating and probably part lion. Right on cue, she grabbed the fluttering tail end of my thought and ran with it.

"He seemed particularly fond of Edward, slept in front of his door. They have the same hair, so he probably thought he was his brother."

"He does have hair like a lion," I giggled.

"_Yank_ on it. He loves that shit." She tugged the end of the long braid she'd just finished, my scalp tingling. I blushed, sure she could see it bleeding across my neck. My lip was still so sore that it almost hurt to talk and I found myself tonging the spot more than I should and I tried to distract her from Edward, knowing full well that I was helpless to resist. This was the first time either of them had pinpointed an exact location for me, only offering vague indications until now, so I clung to that.

"Ethiopia, huh?"

"I think that's where I'm going to start from, when I go back. I'd like to snuggle with that lion again." Her fingers skittered across my scalp, plucking another lock of hair from the mess on my head.

"_When_?" I must have sounded doubtful because Alice huffed, almost like she had expected this from me.

"I'm going. I don't care what Edward says."

"What if he doesn't want to?" I was instantly terrified for her, remembering Edward's fear over the guns and all the shit that Alice had gone through. The diseases and the death and the losing battle against time and circumstance. The lions that roamed the desert at night and the plants that could kill you if you took too much of them.

Her tattoos made her look a whole lot stronger than I was starting to suspect she actually was.

"Then he doesn't go," she shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant but her voice wavered, fingers absently pleating my hair.

"I think you should talk to him about it."

"You don't think I've _tried_? He's stubborn as fuck when he wants to be and he's made up his mind."

I furrowed my eyebrows and stared at the sea lion, its back rising and falling in a steady, comforting rhythm that seemed to be the only constant right now. I knew I had no right to try to talk her out of it, but I couldn't help my trepidation. I was hesitant to bring up Jubilee, but she was the entire reason Alice was here with me right now. The reason she wasn't on a different continent and I wasn't sure I wanted to let her go just yet. She gave me the first legitimate orgasm I'd had in well over six years last night, even if it was unintentional, and I was feeling rather attached.

"He said it took you four days to get out of bed."

She huffed again, fingers still braiding. "_He would know_. He was in it the whole time."

I blinked in confusion. "I thought it was only once?"

"It took me _four days_ to get out of bed, right?" She mimed me, each word cynical and crystal clear.

_Right_.

"You could set up in the city, start your own practice?" I tried again, weak, but I was running out of options, unable to do anything but conjure up images of her tangled up in bed with Edward. For _four_ days.

"I'm going to waste here," she spat, reeking of frustration and discontent. "They need me."

I bit the insides of my lips together, in case I slipped and told her that they weren't the only ones. Edward's fascination made more and more sense after every fleeting moment I spent with her and I was starting to see the faint glimpse of potential heartache that pooled at the bottom of the vast cliff I was working myself back to the top of.

I really hoped it was deep enough to cushion my fall.

* * *

Edward was lying on my beach when I got home.

I watched him from the relative safety of the deck for a while, letting him remain unaware of my arrival for as long as possible and changed out of my swimsuit, putting on a simple cream colored dress with a pretty trim of pale pink lace around the hem, brushing at my thighs. My hair was a cloudy disaster, twice its normal size and strung through with countless braids, courtesy of Alice. There was going to be no taming it so I didn't even bother. I eventually swallowed down my nerves and made my way out onto the deck and down to the beach. He seemed to know I was coming because he hitched up onto his elbow in the sand, glancing over his shoulder at me before pulling himself gracefully to his feet.

"Where's Jasper?" I stepped up right in front of him, trying to ignore the fact that his smell made my head spin just a badly as it did under the effects of the ocean. Rich as butter with a salty sting after I swallowed.

"He's gone." Edward's jaw tightened as though he had much more to say, but was keeping himself from sharing it.

"Was he here?"

"Yes."

_Great_. I wondered what that interaction had been like.

"What did you say to him?" I asked, assuming the worst and Edward scowled at me.

"What makes you think that I'm the only one who had something to say?"

"Isn't that why you're here?"

"No," he shook his head. "I'd really like an encore of your performance from last night."

"Alice isn't here," I rolled my eyes and my words in a healthy coat of sarcasm. He looked as though he was griping something hard between his teeth, grimacing at me with his voice rolled in thunder.

"I don't give a _damn_ about her right now."

His eyes sparked stormy grey, my lip still throbbing from his kiss last night and I launched myself out to sea. Fled into the water and floundered away from him, headed for the little boat that was named for the art of lying and I almost drown _twice_ on the way out of pure confused lust. I got seawater up my nose like a dose straight to the brain and pulled myself clumsily onto the boat with my head rocking in time to the incoming tide.

Edward wasn't far behind. He emerged from the water, puling himself up into the boat cursing and breathing hard. Tattoos speckled with crystalline drops of seawater and his teeth set into his lip.

"Why are you always so angry with me?" He pressed his brows together and growled, a dripping wet, riot-haired boy who spent an entire year with a lion sleeping at his doorway and four days in bed with Alice.

"Because I don't understand you!" I basically screamed at him, my skin half numb and my head still fucked up on lavender and his smell. "Why would you want me over her?"

"Are we really talking about Alice again?" He shook his head at me, sending droplets of water splattering across the seats and sounding as though he couldn't quite believe it.

"She said you spent four days in bed with her," I spat, voice trembling.

"She should learn to keep her mouth shut. It's not like we spent those entire four days fucking each other," he snapped back at me, angry and foul tongued.

"Are you in love with her?" Judging from the way he watched her pranced around naked except for all her ink last night, I was pretty certain of it. Taking into account his near constant focus, one that bordered right up on enamored awe, his answer was just a formality.

He caught his breath in his throat and spoke with his jaw tightened, eyes wide. "In a way."

"She doesn't feel the same?"

"She doesn't want me," he shrugged, trying to look unmoved but failing. "She wants someone she can't have."

"You can't be talking about me," I shook my head, fully aware that he didn't answer my question about his feelings, only justified her actions.

"Of _course_ not," he hissed. "Those Kissi Pennies might as well be her promise ring."

"She told me an Elder gave them to her." I cocked an eyebrow and Edward snorted, his own eyebrows arching. He spoke slowly, as though he was explaining something complex to a four year old.

"Out there, you can become an Elder at fifteen. It's about half of their life expectancy, so it makes sense. Alice's _Elder_ is Ekundayo, otherwise known as Dayo, who became chief at _ripe old age_ of seventeen."

It was the name she'd thrown at him last night, coated in a thick layer of sticky malice.

"They're in love?" I stuttered. _She did not tell me that._ I thought about the way Alice kissed those pennies the first time I spotted them, reverential and heartbroken under an entirely new light.

Edward nodded, chewing on his lip rings. "But he's promised to someone else."

"Like an arranged marriage?"

More nodding. "And Jubilee was his only surviving heir. His lineage will end unless he has a child and those are hard to keep alive out there in the desert."

_Christ, this just kept getting more and more tangled. _

"She thinks you're holding it against her," I whispered. She actually didn't, _yet_, only had suspicions but I wanted to see his reaction for myself.

His eyes tightened shrewdly, cryptic as the damn sphinx. "She let it get in the way."

"Let _what_ get in the way?"

"Love," he spoke as if it tasted bad. "She should have stepped back. She was in it too deep, too many people to disappoint if she failed and she did. I tried to stop her but she's stubborn as fuck."

"Funny, she's said the same thing about you."

Edward rolled his eyes. "We're more alike than either of us care to admit."

"Tell me what her arm means. The word, and the pool of . . ." I tried to be demanding but trailed off uncertainly, not willing to admit at what I suspected it actually was. Edward was quiet for a long time before he spoke, searching my face intently and chewing on his lip rings as though it was helping him decide what to tell me.

"It's part of a drawing," he said slowly. "Jubilee's little friend gave it to Alice just before we were leaving."

"But why? It's so sad." I sighed, heart feeling achy and sore from my vicarious brush up against Alice's reality. I couldn't understand how she could live with such a constant reminder. Edward made a sound low in his chest and huffed out a mouthful of self-explanatory philosophy.

"Yeah, well . . . Sometimes tattoos become our scars."

I thought of the sea lion napping at Secrets this morning, covered in the physical manifestation of its war to survive. Of Alice and Edward, coated in something of the same. Flagrant indications to strangers of the battles they'd fought.

Win some.

Lose some.

* * *

**reviews = love**


	20. Chapter 20

**Twenty**

* * *

I sat in that little boat, pressed up against the sea-foam seating and just stared at him.

At the tattoos that might be his scars and the hair that was just like a lion. His face was hard as a stone and his shirt stuck damply to his chest. He was staring blankly at my chest, chewing mindlessly on his lips rings and making my own lip ache in response.

"My face is up here." I snapped my fingers in his face and he blinked rapidly, pulling his eyes back up to my face and pushing that studded bottom lip out in a stubborn pout.

"You're making it really hard to concentrate."

"_I_ am?" I almost laughed. I was of the opinion that it was _him_. He made it so difficult not to get distracted and I'd barely had a coherent thought in days.

"Your dress." His lips spread into a healthy smirk. "It's practically see through."

I knew he was right without bothering to confirm the truth, fully aware that the thin white silk was plastered to my skin and I felt my nipples visibly pucker, just to wrench the knife. It was probably the breeze. That or his laser-stare, burning flowered filigrees around them.

"Kiss me again, _please_," he spoke gruffly, eyes now locked firm on my mouth.

"Show me your bell," I countered instinctually.

"I'm not gonna do that. Look for it yourself."

He reached across the space between us and pulled me into his lap, my fingers clutching his tattoos and all the breath caught up in my throat. My ass hit the damp fabric of his shorts and he made noise low in his chest that almost scared me, a guttural growl that sounded nearly menacing. I put my palm down right over that octopus on his shoulder and dug my fingernails into her trailing limbs, his shirt gone transparent, bunched up in my fingers. I must have spent this entire time climbing because here I was again, peering over the edge of that same cliff I'd tumbled from under Alice's mouth last night.

Weak kneed and out of breath.

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. The way you taste." He brushed my hair back off my shoulders, sounding like he'd spent all night climbing too. Breathless and reeling. "She got you there by barely _touching_ you." He whispered as if it wasn't logical, fingertips sunken deep into my skin yet again. "Let me do better."

"If that's what this is all about, you can leave." I huffed, trying to scramble off him but he held me tight, fingers digging into my skin, bunching handfuls of pale pink lace and creamy satin in his fists.

"You look absolutely stunning when you're angry with me."

"_You_ look like you're holding a smoking gun." I scowled at him, giving him exactly what he wanted.

"I _am_." He gripped me tight as though he was hinting that _I_ was the gun. "I've told you, I don't understand this." His eyes were locked on the hollow at the base of my throat, face falling until his mouth was pressed damply against it with his temple brushing my chin. Metal rings to the bump of my collarbone.

"You make it sound as though it isn't even your decision." My arm wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer before I even had a chance to tell it to. _Or not to_. I had no idea. His chest met mine, hands spanning the small of my back and the spot between my legs pressed achingly up against the seam of his shorts.

"Yeah well . . . you're the bell, remember?" He groaned as he swept his nose along my collarbone, warm lips and the faint chill of metal to my skin as he spoke.

He was spot on. I felt like I was ringing from head to toe. A reverberation that made my insides quiver and my mouth want things I had no will to deny it. I leaned down to finally test out my brown butter theory, swiping my tongue along the exposed stretch of his neck and was rewarded with a salty sweet mixture that made my stomach clench fiercely.

"Don't," Edward growled, pulling his neck out of my reach, a hand suddenly gone from my hip and clenched into a fist at my side. I wondered briefly if he trying to keep his instincts in check, fighting the urge to open up and slap me, palm stinging against my backside for breaking some unspoken rule. I squirmed, suddenly hot with the visual scampering around my head.

On my knees, ass in the air, blotted red with Edward's handprints.

Alice had created a monster out of me.

"I don't want this to be about me. I want to watch you get off," he spoke gruffly. "I've never seen anything quite so alluring. I'm riveted."

Again with the watching and the _wanting._ He was liar, and a rather bad one because he was obviously enjoying himself, my perch on his lap not leaving a whole lot to the imagination. Edward exhaled heavily and uncurled his fist, flexing to stretch out his fingers, one of his knuckles popping before he set his index finger to my shoulder and slowly pushed the thin strap of my dress off the edge. It fell against my elbow as he swept down and cupped my breast, a small eye tattooed on the thumb that pressed down over my nipple. I groaned and leaned into his touch, convinced that he'd laid gun powder into that tattoo he was always working on because those burning lines of lacework burst freshly into flame. His other palm found my crotch, the heel smashing my clit up between the heel and my pubic bone and I shivered through a tidal wave of heat far too strong to hide. Edward smiled lazily to himself, watching me through half-hooded eyes as he slipped a single finger underneath the hem of my underwear.

"Shit, Bella," he groaned, sliding through my pussy, slipping between folds and fondling my clit. "You're not even gonna make me work for it, are you?"

"It's mine, remember?" I panted, clutching his shirt, skin prickling and lungs gone nearly solid. "Give it to me."

"Gladly," he whispered, mouth back on my neck, palm to my breast, fingers curling up inside of me. He pressed himself as deeply as he could and groaned low in his chest when my hands threaded through his hair. I fisted a palmful and pulled on it hard enough to tip his head back and he hissed at me, pinched eyes locked firmly on my mouth. Just as I was about to get a taste of the bone-numbing fall that awaited me, lick the inside of his mouth clean of every intoxication he offered, we were interrupted.

"Bella!"

Esme's voice wafted across the water, the slam of my front door following her words and Edward flung me off, his belly to the deck of the boat the moment my ass hit the seat.

"What are you doing?" I grumbled, hastily pulling up my dress and he rolled onto his back, smirking slyly up at me. He didn't look fazed at all, only sleepy-eyed and wild-haired. Just about dry and tousled by the wind. Far too pleased with himself.

"My mother probably _shouldn't_ catch us." He quirked an eyebrow and tucked his finger into his mouth, glistening from his explorations, sucking on it strong enough to hollow out his cheeks. He couldn't know that was my favorite face of his, but then again, I was beginning to suspect that the boy was a psychic.

Esme appeared on the deck as I slipped back into the water and was standing on the beach by the time I made it to shore. She was already shaking her head at me.

"What in the world are you doing out there? Please don't tell me you fell asleep, you're probably thoroughly burned." Esme scolded me as I finally stepped out of the water. I shook my arms and wrung out my hair, if only to buy myself time so that I wouldn't have to look her in the face. Trying to ignore the ache between my legs.

_I most certainly had **not** been sleeping in that boat._

"You're one to talk," I grumbled at her. She was still stained red around the edges and winced a little whenever she moved to quickly, skin pulling painfully along. I trailed her inside, the back of my neck on fire, sure that Edward was staring at me from his soon to be freed imprisonment on the boat. I knew that he'd probably slink off and swim around the barrier to his own villa as soon as we disappeared inside.

"I simply _must_ show you the fabric we found for seven, it's one of the most beautiful shades of blue I've ever seen." Esme plopped onto the couch and started shuffling through her large workbook, thumbing through pages and talking distractedly about cotton versus chintz and whether or not brocade was too heavy for the warm, tropical weather.

"Esme," I cut her off, choosing to justify my interruption with my nearly constant three-sheets-to-the-wind inebriation. "Does Carlisle have a problem with Edward? His tattoos?"

Esme glanced sharply at me but pulled her eyes away just as fast. "It's not a _problem_." She emphasized the word heavily, which only told me that it was. "I'm sure you understand, don't you? There's barely any disparity in this world of ours. That's not to say that his tattoos and . . . _other_ choices . . . don't have their merit."

_Do not think about his lips rings. **Do not.**_

"He asked Edward to stay behind, didn't he?" I tried to control the waver in my voice as my bruised lip flared to life in time to my heartbeat.

_Ow. Fail. _

Esme nodded, her mouth clamped tight and her hands wrung together as though she was trying to squeeze all the excess liquid from herself. Dripping a complicated mixture of unspoken discomfort and undying loyalty. I knew she loved Edward deeply but was beginning to see the awkward place a parent might find themselves put into by their child.

"Carlisle in a difficult position, Bella. There's a certain image he is responsible for upholding and Edward doesn't exactly . . . _comply_. Think about all of them," she rolled her eyes, referring to our endless boring dinner parties. Full of the same old men in two-dollar haircuts and two thousand dollar suits, their pockets far too deep and influence far too potent. "They aren't exactly accepting of change. There isn't even a gay man in sight as it is, much less a _woman_ . . . can you imagine the upheaval Edward has caused?"

I bit my lip, Edward's bruises screaming under my teeth but it was better than blurting out what was in my mouth.

_Actually, there's a gay man right underneath their noses._

* * *

**AN:**_  
_

- Two chapters again this week, because I love you but also because they sort of go together. Bella has some info to lay down, but Edward will get the last word.

_Wait for it._

- Also, Alice's 'heaven' tattoo was inspired by a scribble on a wall of glass in the music video for Easy/Lucky/Free by Bright Eyes.

My favorite three minutes of video reel _ever_.


	21. Chapter 21

**Twenty One**

* * *

"It's nice. But I think you can do better."

I glanced up from the Bruno Magli I'd just slipped onto his foot, a shoe worth more than my entire ensemble _and_ my phone bill combined. It was beautiful, really, as far as shoes go. Chocolate brown leather, an elaborate punched pattern trimming the graceful lines of contrast stitching. Exposed eyelets. Woven silk laces.

The shoe had nothing on the guy.

"You don't like it?" I stuttered, fumbling the moment I met his eyes, piercing icy blue that made everything inside of me boil. He nudged some hair out of his face, blonde and a little too mussed for the expensive suit he was sporting. It was perfectly tailored, blizzard grey, single-buttoned, eggplant colored tie undone at his neck, the top button of a pale lilac dress shirt pulled open.

My knee were trembling before they'd even hit the floor.

"It's not singing to me, no." He angled his foot to look at the shoe, not bothering to stand before glancing back down at me. I was certain he had a clear view down the neckline of my dress. "I think you have a few tricks up your sleeve. I'm looking for something . . . _different_."

"Different?"

He looked at me again, eyebrow arched. "I'm not playing it safe. Show me what you've got."

Three pairs later, he finally deemed my choice suitable enough to stand for inspection. We were in one of the private rooms, the full wall of mirrors a little extravagant for simply trying on shoes but sort of perfect for subtly eyeballing him while he studied them in his reflection. These were my favorite in the whole store, a pair crafted in Italy by a house that had been making shoes for nearly two hundred years. The buttery soft leather was stripped back and then painted a rich shade of red, still-visible brush strokes giving the near appearance of wood grain. A steal at just under two thousand dollars, they were slim and tapered, elegant in a way I'd never felt any of my clients could pull off. Until today.

Until him.

_Where had this man come from?_ Standing before me in refreshing silver, manicured and poised to the point of myth, managing to make even the burning red shoes look intentional. I hated my life. So fucking boring and full of men who wanted the same black oxford in the same plain box, worn with the same boring suits as the hundred that came before them.

"You don't look impressed." He was looking at me through the mirror as though he was trying to hold back a smile, failing slightly. "What do you think of them?"

I was nearly grimacing, surprised by my face when I caught a glimpse of its reflection. I smoothed out my furrows and cleared my throat, spouting off what I knew and loved about the shoe.

"The body is grain leather, treated twice, and for all I hear it wears beautifully as it ages. There's a bit of a raised heel, but I think you'll find it only-"

"Not the prepackaged sales blurb," he interrupted. "I'm asking _you_. What were you thinking just now, with that pretty scowl on your face?"

I bit my lip for half a moment before I gave in, blooming pink cheeks under his frosted eyes. "That I've never gotten to try these on someone."

"No one else?" He perked an eyebrow and glanced down at the shoes, mouth spreading in a sly smile. "Why is that?"

"They're a commitment," I hedged.

"Dare I ask how much they are?"

_More than a couple months' worth of my rent, guy. _

"They retail at just over eighteen hundred. Considering the craftsmanship and the label, they're considered a bargain."

"Is that your honest opinion?"

"Honest?"

"Honest," he repeated, more of that wide mouth and the piercing eyes. He looked nearly excited for my answer so I played along.

"For _that_ price, they should be able to shoot lasers from the toes," I grumbled, nudging that expensive shoe with the toe of my cheap knockoff heel. He grinned at me, eyes bright.

"You are a breath of fresh fucking air. What in the world are you doing selling shoes?"

"Long story." I rolled my eyes so that I wouldn't start ranting and raving, or crying and collapsing. He certainly did not need to see any of that.

"Will you meet me tonight? My sister is throwing herself a birthday party and I would love the distraction."

"I'm not a distraction." I arched a cynical eyebrow, unable to believe that this boy in two thousand dollar shoes and an eight hundred dollar suit just asked me out.

"You've distracted me for the last hour," he glanced at his watch and winked at me. "I'll take these. _And_ the Brunos."

"I thought they weren't singing to you?" I asked, confused. He'd obviously just been stringing this along if he liked the first pair enough to purchase them.

"Like I said, _distractions_. Is that a no?"

"No?"

"You won't come?"

I held him off with vague excuses about customer/employee relationships. Mumbled something about protocol and needing to keep my job. Weak justifications, all the while feeling like giving up on everything and just saying yes. Fifteen minutes after he left I was in the stock room, re-shelving shoes and fighting with myself over everything I'd just said and done and how I'd let my face get the better of me. I was still feeling wobbly and precarious, aching knees and racing head. Tanya found me just as I shoved the last box into place.

"I was picking up in room four and I found this."

It wasn't until she handed me the business card did I realize that I didn't even know his name. He was just blonde and beautiful and looked amazing in that suit. According to the card, his name was Jasper Hale and he was the first guy in what felt like forever who didn't make me feel like a soap bubble when he looked at me. I was already making plans long before I flipped the card over.

Five words and a phone number in easy, sprawling script.

_If you change your mind._

* * *

Precisely six hours and thirty seven minutes later I was on a dance floor in a club I would never go to, in shoes I only wore out of desperation, with a big drunken dude basically dry-humping my leg through a horrible radio hit about girls kissing girls. He looked like he was the high school football star from somewhere in the midwest, corn-fed and probably a good farm kid until he moved to the city and got lost. Now he was drunk and overly-enthusiastic and set his sights on me the moment I walked into the club.

He'd made my job of searching for Jasper a lot harder than it had to be.

"Dude, I'm not fucking interested." I tried to push him off, wondering if this is what people with small, clingy children felt like. This one was giant-sized. I tried squirming away from him through the crowd but he obviously had a knack for catching small creatures in any sort of environment, something I figured probably came in handy on the farm. Before I knew what was happening he had me ground up against him, a knee worming between my own and sour-beer-breath everywhere I turned. I squirmed violently, hands to his chest with my head craned to keep out of range of his beer cloud and that was the moment I saw him.

_Jasper_.

Near the bar with a glass of something golden in his hand and still in that suit. His tie was gone, more buttons of his shirt were undone and I was so fucking thankful he was here.

"Jasper!" I screamed, I'm not gonna lie. The music was deafening and everyone around me was yelling and laughing and bouncing around manically to the shitty music. Farm Boy was breathing hard down my neck and I was the proverbial needle in the messy, riotous haystack.

Jasper glanced over and easily picked me out of the crowd, instant and unwavering. His gaze jumped to Farm Boy and he handed his glass the person he'd been talking to, leaping into the melee and pushing his way through with his elbows. There faster than I thought possible, answering my inaudible call.

"Alright, that's enough." He wrestled me from Farm Boy with both hands and I stumbled into him, fisting a tight hold on his jacket lapels for good measure. He steadied me, pulling me against him and elbowing off a random stray who bounced into us mid flail.

Farm Boy growled and tried to pull me back. "Hey, step off asshole. The song isn't over and besides, I saw her first." He managed to get a giant paw around my wrist, clamping down tight enough to make me gasp and Jasper's fist connected cooly with his jaw in my peripheral vision.

Farm Boy stumbled backward, a hand to his face.

"She came here for me." Jasper replied cooly and pulled me up close, our hips together and a hand firmly on my backside. He put a palm to my face, thumb grazing my cheek and his eyes searching mine. His mouth was perfect, wide and soft and he licked his lips, making me momentarily stupid. "You're late, Babydoll. Kept me waiting."

"Sorry," I mumbled and watched in flat out fucking amazement as he came at my face, pressing his mouth down over mine and tugging me hard against him. I snaked an arm around his neck to keep my feet underneath me, holding on in case everything from my chin down stopped working.

Which felt like a distinct possibility.

He tasted like expensive whiskey and vanilla.

Jasper suddenly wrenched away and knelt in front of me, head near my waist for one exhilarating second before I was heels over brain, slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour with an excellent view of his ass _and_ of Farm Boy disappearing in the crowd, looking cheated and despondent. He set me on my feet only when we were out in the chilly air, around the corner and under a street light. I straightened my clothes and fiddled with my hair, mostly so I didn't stare while he did the same.

"I wasn't exactly expecting that, but it was effective." My breath billowed from my mouth and I shivered in the cold, suddenly unsure where my jacket was and if I even wanted to go back inside to get it.

"Is that a thank you?" He chuckled, shrugging out of that grey jacket I'd been so enamored with and settling it around my shoulders, still warm, reaching out to help me smooth the hair from my face.

His fingers curled around my ear and I gulped. "Thank you."

"Of course, but only for you. I can be quite convincing when I want to be."

* * *

He took me to his fancy, midlevel apartment.

Got me trashed on gin.

We spilled secrets to one another, an eye for an eye.

I found it endlessly irritating that he didn't seem to like boobs and felt sort of foolish when I learned _why_.

He hated my endless pessimism and the cause of it even more.

We spent most of the night arguing. He thought I was giving in too easily, railing against the shitty circumstance my life had put me into and angry that I wouldn't accept his help. I soundly refused every single one of his advances, unwilling to spread the responsibility to people who had nothing to do with the problem while I tried not to let myself get too disappointed over the fact that our first kiss was probably our last one.

We fell asleep in his bed together, drunk and cuddling, which became a regularity.

Two years later, everything changed.

* * *

Jasper typically showed up with flowers and kisses, chock full of confidence and cocky swagger but that afternoon he flopped empty-handed onto the faded futon that doubled as the bed in my impossibly small studio. Pulling his hair out by the roots, despondently waiting for the phone call that might change his life. I tried to tell him to stop, that his hair was one of the best parts about him and it would do him no good to yank it all out now, but he didn't listen.

"They're never going to go for me," he fretted.

"Sure they will. You're everything they want." I tried to sound reassuring but was doing a really shitty job. Jasper knew as well as I did that I had no idea what they wanted.

"No. _Riley_ is everything they want." He said the name as though it was dipped in salt. "Pretty wife, three kids that look like they came in a pre-packaged box at Wal-Mart. He even has a dog named _Buster_. Who names their dog that, anyway?"

"Sounds boring," I scoffed.

"To you, maybe. But to old man Cullen, it might be just what he wants. This is the first new hire he's making outside of his immediate family and I get the feeling that the decision is going to be influenced by that. Old-fashioned would be the very first word I picked to describe him, _and_ all his business buddies."

I'd only heard rumors about Carlisle Cullen, the investment consultant who raised a small empire in the real estate world with his eldest son by his side. The other son was off somewhere doing something depressingly humanitarian and the two of them were well known for being nuclear and frustratingly exclusive. This was a hard club to break into and Jasper was hoping to be the first, though hope seemed to be in short supply around here.

"You really think it's going to matter? Why don't you get a dog and name him Max?"

Jasper shook his head gloomily. "You should have seen the look on Carlisle's face when he meet Riley's piece. She looks like a Stepford wife," he spat, sounding nearly disgusted.

"And he liked that?" I hated to admit it, but I could see the merit. Wives like that made their men look far more responsible and steadfast than they often actually were. A metaphor for commitment and loyalty that many of them often failed to accomplish otherwise.

"_Obviously_. He could barely take his eyes off her. Completely smitten."

"You're sure it wasn't just because he's a dirty old man? Most of them are."

Jasper shook his head at me again, eyes heavy as though he already made up the ending. "They're looking for someone I'm not, B. This was over before it even began."

"Well, take me with you tomorrow. I'll be your Stepford wife."

Jasper stared at the carpet for a moment before glancing shrewdly at me, studying my face as though he was trying to imagine me in a blonde bouffant and taffeta dress. The decision was going to be announced at the annual company Christmas party tomorrow, an event that shut down one of the fanciest restaurants in Chicago every year and usually culminated with a full page of paparazzi photos the next morning. The biggest of the big-business, rubbing elbows and pennies over a four course meal that would have taken me nearly a month to be able to afford on my own.

I wasn't entirely enthralled with the idea of wearing heels for more than twenty minutes, but I was willing to torture myself for good food.

"You would do that?" His eyebrows crumpled, face on the verge of looking hopeful. He'd been so good to me, the singular bright spot in all the muddy mess for the last two years and I wound my fingers through his, echoing words that held so much more weight than their simplicity allowed.

"Of course. But only for you."

* * *

Esme eventually left, packing up her notebook and still rambling about carpeting and drapes. I'd barely heard a word she'd said to me in the last hour, accepting her kiss to my cheek and standing in the entryway after she left, feeling numb and guilty and oddly triumphant.

A shadow fell across my feet as Edward appeared on the deck.

Dripping wet, hair and eyes gone dark. Looking nearly angry. I had no time to wonder why he was still here. No time to ask why he hadn't swum away like I'd been so sure he would, or how much of my conversation with his mother he'd heard.

He stalked into the villa and pushed me up against the wall, my skull thumping hard enough to make me dizzy and fell to his knees in front of me, hands under the hem of my nearly dry dress. His fingers dug into my hips, thumbs dragging my underwear aside and he had his mouth on my clit before I even knew what was going on. Sucking strongly in a steady pulsing rhythm, eyes open with a hum in his throat that lodged right up against the base of my spine.

Jesus. _God_.

My knees nearly gave out. Heart nearly stopped. On fire from the inside out and loving every exquisitely painful second. I gripped his hair tight in both hands and barely kept his name inside my mouth as I took a running start and straight up _flung_ myself from that ledge that had me so terrified before.

A fall that lasted forever and was over before it had even begun.

Edward stood, looking satisfied with himself, wiping his face with his palm and using his sticky fingers to grip my chin before pressing a kiss to my mouth. Salty and sweet and still sort of painful from the bruises he gave me before sauntering out the door.


	22. Chapter 22

**22**

I've been sleepwalking down to the lake / and waking up in the water

- Jenny and Johnny

* * *

I saw Jasper for the first time since I sent him away to Jacob when he found me in the bathtub.

With Alice.

_And_ enough bubbles to nearly overflow the tub, thanks to her extravagant usage of the expensive coconut body wash she found on the vanity. She'd poured in nearly half the bottle and we looked like two overzealous toddlers dressing each other up in fragile soapy jewelry. I had a bubbled crown on my head and Alice's hair spiked into a mohawk, dotted with translucent spheres, a delicate smattering of suds against her chest like a necklace. We were giggling, toes to each other's hips beneath the water, peppering our frothy dress up session with kisses.

She had arrived just moments after Edward left me in the hallway, still panting and pressed up against the wall, convinced that I couldn't move for fear of falling. Part of me was certain that they'd passed each other on the sandy pathway outside and exchanged more of their uncensored secrets because she didn't ask me how I was or what I had been doing. Just showed up at the door and pulled me into the bathroom, filling up the tub and piling it full of bubbles before forcing me in. All in all, it worked and I had just about forgotten to be confused over Edward's latest actions.

Alice pressed a lathered earring to my ear lobe just as Jasper appeared in the doorway.

"Well . . . ladies. _Hello_. While this isn't exactly what I expected to come home to, I'm certainly not going to complain." He leaned up against the counter, a smile widening slowly across his face as he undid the top two of the buttons of his shirt. His hair was wild and his face still looked tired but his eyes were bright and there was something complacently content about his demeanor that gave him a whole new kind of glow.

He was so beautiful.

_Too_ beautiful, and even though I had my leg wrapped around Alice's waist I was intensely jealous of Jacob. I hadn't seen Jasper in nearly an entire day and that's all the time it took for that kid to put a glow on him and fuck up his hair like that. As it were, I was even more confused about our relationship than I had ever been before and loved Jasper so much I was starting to hate him for it.

"How's the new and improved boat dock coming?" Alice asked, adding a few more fresh blobs to my rapidly popping crown.

"On schedule," he answered distractedly, watching her ministrations before his eyes fell to mine. "Are you not going to even say hello to me?"

He pushed himself off the counter and strode across the bathroom with his head tilted, teasing me gently. He didn't give me time to even get my mouth open before he was on his knees beside the tub and had his hand around the back of my head, lips to the four cardinal directions of my face.

Forehead and chin.

Both cheeks in tandem.

"Hi," I gulped, back to love in one manic swing. Jasper left his hand behind my head, palm slipping to my neck as he glanced at Alice, a bubbly punk rocker with a gigantic ass grin on her face and a necklace of soap.

"I hear you've been making out with my wife," he taunted with a matching grin.

"I hear _you've_ been kissing the cabana boy." Alice giggled and Jasper chuckled.

"I think you're getting the better bargain." Jasper glanced at me slyly. "Look at her, sometimes I'm sure I'm living in someone else's dream."

"You are." My mouth went all mutinous on me from right underneath my nose and Jasper's eyebrows furrowed the tiniest bit, eyes pinching at the edges.

"I know. I'm a lucky bastard who doesn't deserve you." He swallowed roughly and pressed a final kiss to the center of the compass, right over my lips, the bruise there from Edward throbbing beneath him.

"I just can't believe that this affection hasn't led you two anywhere." Alice was watching us closely as though searching for clues, looking to find answers in the space between Jasper's lips and my own. Jasper settled himself beside the tub, dropping a hand to trail his fingers through the froth of bubbles and staring at it thoughtfully. He was still frowning, either from my statement or Alice's.

Or both.

"I've never given it much thought. Women are beautiful, her in particular," he tipped his head toward me, "but they're not quite my type." He smirked wistfully, still not looking at me but brushing his fingers along my thigh underneath the sudsy water.

"Is that an '_always_' sort of thing? Or a '_I kissed a boy in college and never looked back_' sort of thing?" Alice asked him.

"Always," Jasper shrugged, hands in the water, fingers to my skin. "I've never been kissed by a woman."

It was true. While I often returned his endearments, he was always the one to initiate them. Even when I did kiss him back, the traditional seal on his "_will you help me with my tie_" jag for example, I was careful to keep it one the proper side of the line. Short and sweet and innocent enough that it wouldn't allude to my _totally_ improper feelings.

"And you're just sticking with it, like a default option?" Alice prodded.

"It's not a _default_," Jasper's voice was edged in defense. "It's comfortable."

"That sounds more like fear to me, Jasper."

"This is not something he can be _cured_ of," I mumbled, knowing full well that I had tried.

"I don't expect that, Bella, but love is meant to be _flexible_. Remember?"

Alice wrapped her hands around the lip of the tub and stood, a cascade of water falling around her knees and a body suit of bubbles hugging every inch of her. Jasper scrambled to his feet, eyeing her warily and backed himself all the way up to the countertop again as she stepped out of the tub, gripping the edge of it. I watched Alice pad toward him, a trail of soapy footprints across the tiled floor and bubbles clinging to all of her tattoos. She stopped right in front of him, put her hands to his chest and stood on her toes, the question mark scar on the sole of her foot peeking at me.

The kiss was not simple.

It was long and lavish and so wickedly sinful that it made my heart feel as though someone had set their taser right up against my chest and let me have the full force of the electric shock. I watched the bubbles glide down her skin, his hand trying to find a hold on her hip and the way her neck arched as she craned her head, half wondering if I was just daydreaming this, making it up in my head.

"What was that for?" Jasper asked her when she pulled away, his shirt splayed with her dark wet palm prints. Much to my surprise, he was almost smiling.

"For you." Alice glanced over her shoulder, diamonds winking at me before picking up her clothes and scampering out of the bathroom, calling goodnight as she disappeared.

I had no idea if she was talking to him, or me.

* * *

3:41 a.m.

I woke up in the water. Trashed on insomnia and lavender and salty browned butter.

The moon was fully pregnant, glowing huge and silver and making everything look faintly metallic. My palms were spread out just over the surface of the ocean, the water licking my skin and my feet firmly in the sand. I had my short silken robe on, but was naked underneath, the sash brushing uselessly around my legs in the water and the front splayed open.

I had no idea how long I'd been out here.

No idea how I'd managed to even _get_ here, but I knew exactly where I wanted to go.

Before I had time to even think it over, I was standing on his beach. Drenched from my swim around the rocks and shivering despite the tepid tropical air. My tattoo-scar was burning like kerosene lamp, too bright to look at directly and hot enough to singe my bones. I was drunk, or stoned, or not nearly enough of both and panting heavily, trying to get some more of that lavender opiate into my bloodstream before I did anything rash.

_More so than showing up on his beach at four in the morning. _

By now my eyes had adjusted and I could see everything through a kaleidoscope of silver. The moon was nearly as bright as the sun, turning the pearly sand into drifts of snow and that was when I noticed him.

Sitting not four feet away.

"Bella." He sounded like he had been waiting for me.

"Why are you awake?" I whispered even though I didn't need to, throat tight and lungs frozen. He'd probably watched my approach, rising from the water like an uncertain mermaid on legs that felt awkward and out of place.

"I could ask you the same." He stuck out his chin, looking me thoughtfully with hollows of his eyes too dark to see inside. "I _should_ ask you what you're doing here, but I think I know."

"I don't know _what_ I'm doing here," I huffed truthfully, falling to my knees beside him in the sand and starting to wondering if I was only just dreaming all of this up, actually peacefully asleep in my bed, curled up against Jasper.

"You don't?" He reached toward me, a hand finding the damp edge of the robe I hadn't bothered to fasten and I was fairly impressed that he managed to keep his eyes on my face, rather than the naked girl underneath it. I was failing miserably at not ogling him, shirtless and drawn all over in patterned shadows. I shook my head and he tugged hard at the robe, pulling me off balance and forcing me right up against him. Legs sprawled in the sand, chest to chest and face to face. He wrapped his cityscape arm around my neck and I put both hands to his chest, fingertips to the octopus limb twining along his collarbones.

"I think you're here for me," he whispered, voice low and caught in his throat.

"Not for me?" I was pretty certain that's what he'd been telling all of us this entire time.

"You too," he exhaled against my mouth and dove between my lips, tongue finding mine and his palm on my neck. My heart was lodged so firmly up into my throat that none of my gasping was doing any good and I felt far more sober than I had the entire time I'd been here. I slumped against him, wet chilly to his sanded heat, the moon giving him a silver version of the golden halo that had become Jasper's favorite accessory.

Edward set his palm to my chest and ran his fingers lightly from the base of my neck to the dip of my abdomen, pausing just below my bellybutton and staring at me for a fraction of a second before moving on. He groaned when he sunk his fingers into me, clutching me close enough to put my face right up against his chest and I pressed my forehead hard against him, inhaling butter and sugar and salt that tasted foreign and exotic on the back of my tongue.

Every minute movement nudged me closer and closer to the edge.

Every breath and brush and stroke only adding to the raging fire that burned just underneath my flowery, invisible tattoo.

His words caught up in his lungs, muffled declarations of explicit intent and vulgar deprivation into the hair around my ear.

He pulled away, putting a margin of space between us and leaned down to run his tongue around my nipple. I watched him suck it into his mouth and he tugged far away before he released me, stretching out the puckered nub and I clenched my eyes and my fists and everything around his fingers tightly, trying to stave off the inevitable. His mouth moved to my other breast, teeth to flesh and the lip rings pressed fervently to my skin, heel of his palm rubbing at my clit and those fingers deep inside me.

"Open your eyes." His mouth left my breast and his words landed on my face in a moist rush of air. I struggled to do what he said, batting my eyelids furiously against the overwhelming urge to scrunch them closed and just let go already.

He was half an inch away.

His hair to my skin and his eyes searching my face. He swirled his fingers, stared hard at me, pressed his thumb roughly against my clit and I _burned_. Willingly clambering to the top of that towering cliff and swan diving off the edge. Relishing every silver-spun second I spent plummeting to earth like a molten comet.

Eyes locked on his through my entire scorching orgasm, silent though I felt like screaming.

* * *

**AN**: Sorry for the delay. The holidays are a bitch.

reviews = love


	23. Chapter 23

**Twenty Three**

* * *

I woke up in Edward's bed.

Which meant that last night was _not_ actually a dream. I had gotten up out of my own bed and wandered into the ocean before I even woke up. Found myself on his beach before I even decided to. His tongue in my mouth and fingers in my skin before I even began paying attention.

Set on fire and feeling rather like a phoenix this morning.

Half expecting to wake up in a puddle of ashes.

Edward was on his back beside me, soundly asleep with his face looking a lot softer than I'd ever seen it before. Sleep does something intriguingly truthful to people, catching them off guard and allowing unfettered glimpses at the person they hide away. Edward's particular brand of truth was especially interesting, an innocence pushing up from underneath all his armor, both ink and metal, that completely belied his appearance.

Face soft, mouth finally relaxed.

His abs were dominated by an enormous dot-work design that began at the bottoms of his ribs and met up just below his navel, mirrored in meticulous detail and full of interesting shapes. It reminded me vaguely of the mosaic tiled floors of ancient temples, elaborate geometric patterns that disappeared beneath a faint trail of hair and then the cotton sheet. I lifted it gently, peering underneath at the rest of the tattoo and noticed the _giant_ bulge nestled in the front of his briefs too late to fully appreciate it.

"What are you doing?" He mumbled sleepily, eyes barely open and his mouth curling at the corner, watching me in sleepy amusement. I dropped the sheet and shrugged.

_Looking at your dick, obviously._

"Looking for your bell."

"You're gonna have to look harder than _that_." He arched his brows suggestively. "Besides, I've already told you it's not down there."

"I don't believe you." I tried not to get distracted by the way he was tonguing his lip rings, the metal moving as he probed them from the inside of his mouth. He just smiled secretively at me and pulled himself from the bed, carelessly picking clothing up off the floor, fumbling with a pair of worn-out jeans.

"Where are you going?" I tried not to sound whiney but he grinned to himself as he buttoned the pants and shoved his hands into the pockets to adjust them.

"My presence has been requested at the dock today. Lord knows for _what_," he huffed. "I guess the common folk aren't as offended by my appearance as the _bourgeois_."

I watched his mouth curl around the word, fully understanding why he told me that my use of _pavlovian _was sexy. I still hadn't gotten a chance to ask him if he'd overheard the way his mother so delicately explained the situation he was in and hated that he had to face such a thing from the people who were supposed to accept him no matter what.

"You don't have to go." I resisted the urge to reach out and grab him before he put any more clothing on, not entirely sure if I was urging him to stop subjecting himself to their judgement or asking him to stay here with me.

Both. _Definitely both_.

"I do," he chuckled, face disappearing in a t-shirt speckled around the neck with wash-worn holes. He obviously didn't care about making an impression this morning. He eyed me pointedly as his face reappeared. "If I stay here, you'll regret it."

"I don't think I will." I squirmed in the middle of his giant white bed, his connotation slinking up between my legs and lapping at everything it could reach. He'd picked me up out of the sand and brought me to bed last night but we'd only laid there while I listened to his heart thump through his rib cage. The next thing I knew it was morning and I'd lost my robe sometime in the middle of the night.

I was naked and still smoldering and he was _leaving_.

Edward toed into his sandals and pushed his sunglasses onto his face, slipping his key card and cigarettes into his back pocket before putting his fists to the mattress and leaning in close to my face. He sucked on the lip rings, pulling on them to the point it almost looked painful and furrowed his eyebrows at me.

"What are you doing to me?" He asked seriously, sounding thoroughly perplexed.

I gulped. "I haven't _done_ anything to you."

"_Yet_," he quipped and fell onto my mouth while I reminded myself not to blink.

He kissed me with his eyes open.

* * *

I stayed in his bed for hours.

Pressed between pillows that smelled like him and sheets just as salty-sweet. Unwilling to leave just yet, half dreaming of mermaids and an octopus and what it would be like to roll around all day in this big empty bed with him. He'd gotten me off twice now and I was a damned _junkie_, fantasizing about his face between my legs and his fingers in my mouth.

About all the places his lip rings could leave a bruise and what I'd only seen a hint of underneath the sheets this morning.

_Ugh_

I pried myself reluctantly from the bed, too curious to lie there anymore. His ipod was plugged into the sound system and I blindly pressed the play button, wondering what he had been listening to last. Something soft and desperate tumbled from the hidden speakers, flooding the villa with a heavy beat that felt urgent and ridden with longing. I pulled one of his giant button-downs over my head in lieu of my saltwater robe which was crumpled in a damp and smelly pile at the foot of the bed, taking hold of my bearings.

Edward's villa was all grey and red and black. More of the low, sleek sofas and giant bed draped in mosquito netting but for all the white and cream of my villa and Alice's, his was peacefully dark. Red upholstery, curtains the color of hurricane skies. Only a few splatters of light were scattered around the room, a glowing paper orb suspended above the living area and a pale ivory coffee table. The granite in the kitchen was obsidian black and floors the polished grey of driftwood.

I spent the next hour wandering.

Or snooping, depending on how you interpreted it.

There was a photograph of his mother in his wallet.

A soft blue t-shirt with a little league logo fading slowly from the front discarded on the bathroom floor. Shampoo that smelled like peppermint and six empty beer bottles clustered near the sink. A Chomsky on the floor by the bed bookmarked at page 147 and a pair of glasses on the nightstand with thick black frames. A tie slung carelessly over a doorknob and another tossed on the floor near the sofa. A shiny shoe on its side near the front door and the twin clear across the room, a scuff mark smeared across the dove grey wall above it where it had landed. Alice's dress, the one she'd been wearing the night she showed up drunk and he told me about the dandelions folded over the back of a barstool and I stood there for a while fingering the fabric, coming to terms with the fact that he hadn't actually taken her home that night.

He brought her here.

A collection of lighters and coins and a pack of cigarettes was abandoned on the coffee table, a single stick left in the pack. I tucked it behind my ear, tossing the empty pack aside when I spotted a crumpled piece of paper, the scant trace of handwriting peeking from one corner. Just as I was about to talk myself into unfolding it to peek inside, she busted me.

"Well, _hi_." Alice was standing in the doorway, looking as though I was the last person she expected to find here. "I heard Sigur Ros and thought Edward was home. Is he here?" She glanced around and I blushed, pulling in my lips.

"He left. Something about the boat dock."

Alice eyed my ensemble and arched an eyebrow at me. "Did you stay here last night?"

I nodded, biting my cheek to keep from grinning too big, still blushing atomic shades of crimson. Trying not let visions of last night make their way into my head.

"He said you make the most beautiful face when you cum." Alice actually _winked_ at me. Damn her, I was certain by now that she could actually read my mind. I reddened even further, still unused to how honest they were with one another. I felt like I hadn't been honest with anyone in a long time, including myself and was a little jealous of both of them. For all these two were giving, they weren't allowing me to offer up much in return and I was sure Alice had seen _just_ such a face on him.

"Does _he_?" I asked, chock full of wicked curiosity.

"_Of course_." Alice nearly rolled her eyes. "You should keep your eyes open next time."

I shook my head, chewing on my lips, dunking myself face first into the memory of his demands to do just _that,_ last night. "We haven't . . ."

"But you stayed here last night." Alice's face smashed together in the middle, just as confused as I was.

"Yes, but nothing happened." _Aside from my burning, midnight orgasm._ "He hasn't let me, or . . ."

I could come up with any number of colorful possibilities but it was the most likely one that bottomed out my stomach.

_He doesn't want me to._

* * *

Jasper was in bed when I got home.

Succumbing to the overwhelming heat of the afternoon, curled up in the sheets and so heartachingly familiar that I let all my instincts take over and crawled right into bed with him. He was scalding hot, scorching my skin and dewey to the touch. I had always been the cold up against all his warm and nuzzled up into him, my bones finally solidifying for the first time in days when he wrapped his arms around me.

"God, I've missed you." He palmed the back of my head, pressing my face to his chest. "Where have you been?"

"You know," I whispered, breathing into his skin.

"Is it Alice? Or Edward?" He flopped onto his back, letting me settle in the curve of his arm and I had to think hard about that one before I answered him.

"Both, I think."

"Edward, I can understand. Alice though . . ." Jasper trailed off. "She comes as a complete surprise."

"I'm sorry about that. In the bathroom the other night."

"_I'm_ not," Jasper said sleepily and I wrinkled my face in confusion. "There's something to be said for it . . . kissing a woman, that I didn't understand before that." He shifted, gazing down at me as though he had a lot to think about.

"You liked it?" I asked, still wrinkle-faced.

He blinked and swallowed something. "It makes me regret all the time I wasted with you."

He tugged me close and put his mouth down over mine, the beginnings of it familiar before it veered inexplicably into unmarked territory, his tongue between my lips and his hand clutching my face. He sighed into my mouth, licking my teeth and fondling my tongue and I was too surprised to even respond before he was pulling away, heavy-eyed and wet-mouthed.

"I've got to go to the mainland again tomorrow. Spend a couple of days there. Will you come with me?" He looked hopeful, sounded even more so. I dropped my eyes and tried to think coherently, caught up in a whirlwind too chaotic to stay grounded in. A hurricane of kisses and promises and agreements. Jasper's newfound tolerance for the fairer sex and how I'd spent years of my life hoping for just this moment.

Alice's mouth.

Edward's hands.

His big empty bed and the elusive bell.

"I think I want to stay. You should take Jacob."

"I don't know that he'll agree. He's not nearly comfortable with any of this."

I wasn't sure how comfortable I was with all of it either, but the poor boy had gotten caught up in something far grander than I'm sure he'd ever stumbled across before in his short, secluded life. I knew that he was probably feeling overwhelmed and unsure of everything just about now. I also knew that Jasper was the very best of all the options Jacob could subject himself to, the cream of the crop so to speak and would treat Jacob just as well as he treated me. Full of respect and unyielding devotion.

The kid could do far worse.

"He seems completely enamored with you," I mumbled. The searching eyes and that full-blown grin that stretched across his face when he realized Jasper was his for the night were enough to confirm that fact for me.

"Yes, but I think he might be falling a little too hard. I should back off. Stay away." Jasper sounded as though that was the very last thing he wanted to do.

"It might not be such a bad thing, if he does . . ."

"He's just some boy. On some island," Jasper shook his head before gripping my chin firmly in his fingers, making sure I was paying attention. "_You_ are my everything."

"I don't want to make you choose."

"I won't have to. I've already picked."

* * *

**reviews = love**


	24. Chapter 24

**Twenty Four**

* * *

I heard them before I saw them, their voices launching down the hallway and I stopped short, out of breath and trying to keep my gasping under control. Everyone was gathering for dinner and as I was making my way back to our regular table from the bathrooms I stumbled across something I wasn't meant to hear.

Alice. And Edward.

_Arguing_.

About me.

"Why haven't you slept with her yet?" Alice hissed and I clamped my hand over my mouth in horror, lest I scream out loud. I pressed myself up against the wall as though it would make me invisible and listened in from around the corner. This was the first piece of proof I had that they truly _were_ confidants and here Alice was making a spectacle of me.

"Did she tell you that, or are you just guessing?" Edward grumbled and I heard her huff in response. She probably had her inky arms crossed over her chest and her chin jutted out, diamonds flashing as bright as her eyes.

"She _told_ me."

Edward forced down a frustrated growl. "She's like a _doll_, Alice. In a glass house. She's beautiful and vulnerable and it's _not real._ It's a fantasy."

"You're going to give the poor girl a complex." Alice said softly.

I gulped, waiting impatiently for him to say something but all I got was silence. Dead air that was nothing but snowy static sparking in my ears as I worried hopelessly about everything they'd just exchanged with one another. I'd watched them share enough of those lingering looks to know that they could say more with their eyes than they ever could with their mouths.

"You're going back." Edward finally spoke up.

"I have to. It's amazing to me that you don't understand that," Alice sighed.

"You know how I feel about it," Edward said gruffly, a solid thump against the wall as he slumped against it. Or hit it.

"You have to stop doing this. You have better things to worry about than me."

"Like _what_?" He hissed at her.

"Like, what happens to her when everyone goes home?" Alice asked and when Edward finally responded his voice was tortured, anguish and dread all in one.

"What happens to _me_ when I can't let her go?"

* * *

Dinner turned out to be a complete disaster.

Which wasn't surprising at all.

Carlisle made a brief appearance and disappeared just as fast. Esme was still nursing her sunburn and sunken too deeply into her redecorating projects to join us in reality, sending him to pick up supplies for her self imposed confinement. He kissed the back of my hand and clapped Jasper solidly on the back just as Edward and Alice appeared, both of them looking agitated and on edge.

Alice was poured into a skintight amethyst hued dress, tattoos on display and her feet covered in sand. She pranced over to us and planted a soft kiss on my mouth, one for Jasper too, looking distracted and scattered as she sat beside me and curled her fingers through mine and I didn't know how much of it had to do with her conversation with Edward I'd just overheard.

I, personally, couldn't think about anything else.

Edward had changed out of his ragged shirt and worn out jeans, a green button down now rolled up to his forearms and a new pair of dark wash jeans making an appearance. His hair was just as wild as it typically was and he trailed Alice into the restaurant with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on his feet. He looked distraught, brow furrowed and jaw hard.

"How's the dock coming?" I asked Jasper, taking a sip from my wineglass and trying not to look at Edward.

"Nearly complete," he replied with an easy smile, obviously happy with the progress. "We're so far ahead of schedule that we took the afternoon off." He winked at me, referring to me finding him in bed and the kiss he'd given me, a first even though we'd kissed millions of times before that.

Emmett rolled his eyes. "If that's what you want to believe, Jasper, you go right ahead." He took a drink from his glass and thumped it back down onto the table, glaring at Edward. "How _did_ your little tea party with mom and dad go, Edward? Did you make tiny sandwiches and bond over baked goods?"

He sounded like the left-out older brother, jealous and snippy and willing to say just about anything to make it known. Everyone else's 'afternoon off' had obviously meant something very different for Edward, who was scowling back at Emmett.

"You _knew_ they were going to try to buy me out, didn't you?" He accused with a hiss.

Emmett raised both his eyebrows and set his mouth. "I didn't know shit."

"Sure you didn't," Edward snarled. "I would have appreciated some warning."

"Welcome to my life, little brother," Emmett barked right back. "The Cullen family has a new rising star and it ain't either one of us."

_All eyes on Jasper._

"I'm not trying to steal anyone's thunder here," Jasper defended, reddening slightly around the neck but managing to keep his normal calm about him. "I'm only trying to do right by your father."

"Whatever," Emmett grumbled. "He'd never let _me_ buy an island."

"He didn't _let me_ buy anything," Jasper corrected cautiously, managing to stay just shy of the line that separated patience from exasperation. "It's a reliable investment. I only pointed out the obvious."

"You bought your wife an island, don't go thinking that you're fooling anyone. That greenhouse? Even the _staff_ is referring to it as _Mrs. Hale's_."

"She has nothing to do with this." Edward nearly snarled, a fist to the table hard enough to rattle silverware, making Alice and I jump in our seats. He was glowering at Emmett, dark and savage, brandishing my banner and he'd never looked hotter. Jasper was staring at Edward, looking shocked by his outburst, mouth gaped open. He obviously expected him to jump to our defense even less than I did and I closed my mouth before anyone could catch me.

Emmett stood and threw his napkin onto the table, looking put out and petulant. "You're taking that side? _Fine_, little brother, but don't think that I'm going to forget it." He stormed away, dismissing dinner as easily as if he was declining a second round of drinks.

Dead silence again. For an eternity.

Broken uncomfortably by a troupe of kitchen staff, the head chef sauntering out to detail the creation placed in front of me that I had no stomach for. Alice cleared her throat, sounding just a little nervous as she tried to fill up the stifling quiet that followed their disappearance. She wet her lips and gave me a once-over before peering at Jasper.

"_Jasper_," she purred. "I think I want to marry your wife."

She got a tentative laugh out of me, Jasper rolling his eyes and Edward shooting her a glare dipped in acidic irony. Jasper glanced at Edward pointedly before answering Alice, reaching under the table for my hand, spinning the diamond band around my finger.

"I don't know how willing I am to share her. I've been trying to get her to agree to come to the mainland with me all afternoon, but so far she's shot me down." Jasper smiled at me and he curled his fingers through mine, teasing me just enough to make my tongue go numb and my entire mouth prickly.

His suddenly fervent kiss springing back to life on my already bruised lips.

"She doesn't want to go?" Edward was asking Jasper, but still staring at me.

"No," Jasper shot him a deathly serious stare. "She wants to stay here with you."

Edward swallowed roughly and I knew that was probably the last thing he wanted to hear considering his conversation with Alice not moments ago. He had one hand fisted to his mouth, the other wrapped around his glass and all I could see were the letters on his knuckles and the only noise in the whole miserable world was him telling me to open my eyes last night. His lip rings were firmly tucked away and he was obviously peeling me out of my dress in his head.

_How had I gotten here?_

Holding tight to the hand of the man I adored while allowing the one across the table to undress me with his eyes? Crawling from one bed to another and getting something distinctly different from each one? It all seemed impossible, too much to hold inside and I was worried that I might split open right down the middle.

I tore my hand out of Jasper's and stood, trembling even though I hated myself for it and worried I was about to spill all my insides right onto the table in front of everyone. Edward was rising to his feet right behind me and Jasper gripped hard at both arms of his chair, watching me intently. Both of them looked poised to spring and I knew I should stay and untangle this hopeless mess.

I took off instead.

Darted through the big empty hotel, ducking through the kitchens and taking the back exit into the night. Someone was following me, though I had no idea who and didn't want to risk glancing back over my shoulder. Not entirely sure if it was Jasper, or Edward. Not entirely sure who I _wanted_ it to be.

"Bella, dammit!"

A voice followed me as I ran blindly, panic tasting like liquor and mouth full of the fear all the lavender in my throat made so difficult to swallow. I didn't know if I was scared of them, or myself, or the entire situation or if it _was_ even fear at all. I didn't know where I was running to or what I was going to do once I got there. Didn't know my name or my face or why I was caught up between two boys who both stood an equal shot at breaking me.

The soft sole of my foot caught against something sharp and I could almost hear the jagged ripping noise my skin made when it broke open. I limped the last few steps.

The greenhouse was shining in the last fading rays of the sun, all the glass catching the light, blindingly bright. It took all of my strength to get the heavy door open and I stumbled inside, out of breath and depleted of the energy to run anymore. A lone employee was watering in a far corner underneath the gnarled tree, another one of those dark-skinned beauties that made my heart wrench and he hastily dropped his hose, nodding his head in brief acknowledgment before he fled.

I wondered if it was because I looked like a half-crazed lavender addict, because that's surely what I felt like.

Strung out on opiates and too much overwhelming reality.

He wasn't far behind, all the reflective glass casting transparent reflections of him all around me, a fun house of his fuzzy features everywhere I looked. He stopped just in front of me, panting.

"I thought you were Jasper," I gasped.

"Do you want me to be?" Edward's eyebrows compacted.

"No."

"Why did you run?" He was still breathing hard, fingers twitching at his sides as though he was itching to reach out and grab me.

"I heard you fighting with Alice." I ignored his question, still panting.

Edward rolled his eyes. "I can't fend her off."

"Is that really how you feel about me? I'm a fantasy?" I bit my lower lip if only to keep it from pushing out in a pout and tried not to feel as hurt by his comment as I actually was. It was the truth, really, and he was far more observant that I was for noticing it. Braver than I was for acknowledging it. Stronger than me, for attempting to fight it.

"Yes, I'm convinced that you'll disappear if I push this too far. Vanish."

"Where would I go?"

"Back to your life. You seem happy with it."

"Maybe I'm not so happy. Maybe I'm stronger than you think."

"I hope so," he sighed, not specifying if he hoped for my strength or my possible disillusionment. "Let me look at your foot. You're bleeding everywhere."

Sure enough there was a puddle of dark red blood slowly growing beneath me, a steady drip-drip-drip of sticky red goo that made me lightheaded and weak stomached simply looking at it.

"Alice said you sewed her foot up with an earring and a piece of thread," I gulped, trying to force down my stomach. Edward smiled wistfully, mouth curling up just like the question-mark scar on her foot.

"True, but there's a fully equipped medical wing here. I don't think we'll have to resort to anything quite that dramatic."

* * *

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	25. Chapter 25

**Twenty Five**

* * *

"Tell me about the day you sewed Alice's foot up."

I was perched on a luxury version of the bed in any standard doctor's office, the room dark except for the spotlight over my foot and Edward leaning down over it, his hair glowing in the light and his face serious. He was swabbing industriously at the gash on my sole, picking sand from my flesh with his eyes pinched in concentration. He glanced over at me before going back to his work and I thought that he'd never been more intriguing.

"She was chasing after a giraffe."

"A _giraffe_?"

_Good god, that girl was nuts. _

"Yes. I don't know why she ever thought she could run fast enough to catch up to it, but her blind enthusiasm never fails to surprise me."

"Did she?"

"Of course not. She stepped on something sharp and showed up sobbing and bleeding all over my front step. Classic Alice." He was threading a scary looking needle and I decided then and there to focus on his face for the remainder of this morbid craft project.

That determined curve of his jaw.

The hair curling around his ears.

The bouquet of dandelions on his neck.

"You used her earring," I gasped as he prodded me one last time, gloved finger to my wound and he looked hard at me, moving his hand to the top of my foot and gripping it tightly.

"I promise that this won't hurt you nearly as much as it did her. Are you ready?"

I nodded hastily, lest I change my mind and he set to work before I could pass out, hunkered over my foot. He'd sunken enough anesthetic into my sole to bring a rhino to its knees and I kept my eyes firmly on that pulse throbbing just below his jaw, steady as a metronome, until my stomach stopped flip-flopping and my heart resumed its normal plodding beat. The ocean was too far away for me to be feeding off of it and I was feeling woefully sober.

"Why didn't you have a needle?" I asked, knowing that filling up the silence would help distract me from what was going on at the bottom of the table. Edward grimaced but kept his eyes on his hands.

"The people who need the most seem to wait the longest. We'd go months sometimes without getting resupplied."

"We give money every year to those programs. Save the Children. I would hope it goes somewhere useful," I practically grumbled, wincing out of blind instinct as I imagined the needle between his fingers piercing my flesh even though I couldn't feel anything that felt remotely like my foot, much less pain.

"The people controlling that money rarely understand desperation. They've only witnessed it through their car windows or computer screens. Their cellphones," he made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like disgust. "It isn't a reality and that makes it all so much easier to pander around with. You'd think it would be simple but it's all just a bunch of bureaucratic bullshit. Just like this place," he huffed, insinuating at the vastly different circumstance he'd found himself in recently.

Third world country to five star resort. Dirt floors to cashmere carpeting.

"Is that what the scene between you and your brother was all about?"

Edward scowled at my foot, still working. "My parents cornered me today. They've offered to fund a sort of . . . non profit, in my name. I have the feeling they're just trying to get rid of me. I should have just stayed in bed with you," he grumbled under his breath.

I couldn't understand why staying in bed with me would be the choice option over an offer like _that_, but he sounded so regretful that I was half inclined to believe he actually felt that way.

"Maybe you should accept," I urged, trying to ignore as he pulled the thread tight and how funny my stomach suddenly felt. "You could do more good than most with resources like that, when you go back."

"Who says I'm going back?" Edward tore his eyes from his work to peer at me.

"You have to," I tried to sound final. "Alice is determined. She can't go alone."

He set his jaw as he snipped the black thread he'd used to put me back together and started peeling open a big bandage, unresponsive. I was amazed it was over so quickly and watched as he discarded the wrapper, chewing on his lip rings. He was obviously ignoring my plea for Alice, face imposing and hair in a furious mane around his face.

"She told me about the lion. The one who slept by your door," I stuttered, dry-mouthed.

He smiled quickly, without meaning to before forcefully tempering it. "He was fascinating. Made me finally believe that nature can be forced aside."

"You didn't before?"

Edward shook his head. "Everyone is a slave to their instincts. Survival is dependent on a few basic things that every creature on this earth is trying to get, in one form or another. Just to stay alive, at any cost."

"Food and water?" I asked the obvious, watching him line up the bandage over the sole of my foot.

"Shelter," Edward continued. "Air and warmth and sex." He glanced slyly at me again, pressing firmly against my foot.

"Sex isn't _required_ for survival." I shook my head at him, pretty sure that I wasn't meeting a quicker end simply due to my self imposed run of celibacy. Edward sucked on his lip rings some more as he finished pressing the bandage to the bottom of my foot and finally turned to look at me, his eyes hinting at far more as he tugged off his gloves.

"Maybe not. But it sure makes the whole messy ordeal somewhat more tolerable."

* * *

He carried me across the island, my leg numb to the knee and my foot gone soft and molten, hot as a volcano and throbbing dully. The jungle was dark by the time we emerged from the main building, shadows whispering quietly to one another through the dense foliage. I clung to Edward's neck, feeling light and heavy and strangely liquified, all at once.

"How many stitches did you give me?" I asked through the dark, absently admiring the shimmery silver edging the moon had set down against his profile.

"Three."

"_Three_? That's all?" I gasped. _It felt more like thirty. _

"Don't sound so shocked," he chuckled.

"How many did you give Alice?"

"Sixteen."

_Holy god, that must have hurt._ "I bet she screamed," I whispered haltingly, stomach suddenly rolling.

"Like a banshee," Edward chuckled, shifting me in his arms to nudge open the door to his villa. He set me on the wine colored couch before turning on the lights, both of us blinking to adjust.

"Would you like something to drink?"

"Please," I sighed, head starting to reel again from my prolonged intoxication on all sorts of foreign substances and the fiery burn in my foot. Edward stepped into the kitchen and pressed his hips to the countertop with his back toward me as he poured a generous helping of bourbon into a squat tumbler. His hand remained wrapped around the neck of the bottle for a long time after setting it down.

"Why aren't you going with Jasper?" He asked without looking at me and I thought about the two telephone poles that framed his back underneath his shirt. About the mere inch of space between the peeling wood and ivory keys that spanned the length of his torso. About the staggered crisscross of wires and the wide-eyed owl caught forever in limbo.

"He told you why," I exhaled, voice just barely above a whisper.

"Was that the truth?" Edward glanced over his shoulder, hair in his eyes and tattooed knuckles still fisting the bottle. The sleeping light bulb that fell just shy of his ring finger and his jaw clamped tight above the life cycle of a single flower as he waited for my answer. I gulped down all my fear in one stinging swallow and nodded.

"Oh, Bella," he sighed, finally releasing the bottle and walking hesitantly toward me. He offered the tumbler, already sweating around a glowing inch of sunshine. The liquor nearly burned the inside of my mouth and dropped a capful of fire into my stomach, mercifully numbing my tongue and my head just enough that I took a second gulp for good measure before handing the glass back to him. He swirled the ice cubes around in the glass before neatly polishing off the rest of it and discarding the glass on the coffee table, standing before me with his hands in his pockets as he stared at the carpet between his feet.

Lip rings sucked in and mouth tight around them.

"I don't know if I can do this." He was shaking his head and I knew I had to act, fuck my foot. I darted to my unsteady feet and wound my fingers around a palmful of his shirt, pulling him closer, lost in lavender and slow-cooked butter. An implausible mixture that had my head reeling wildly around in my skull. Battling with my heart and trying desperately to ignore my head. Fighting against all my wavering resolve and slowly crumbling conscience.

I bit his lip rings.

Pushed forward and set my teeth to the metal, his mouth warm and soft. Stumbled into him and let myself go pliable and needy as his arm wrapped my waist to steady me. His filigree tattoo burst to life the moment we touched, a fiery spark ripping down the invisible lines and permanently searing the pattern to my bones.

Irrevocable and stubbornly permanent.

I fully understood his fear of not being able to let this go.

Edward wrenched abruptly away from me, stalking to the opposite side of the room and cornering himself like an animal, pacing on anxious feet. I struggled to remain upright on my uninjured foot, balanced precariously on the toes of my ripped open one and sure more than ever before that he could somehow read my mind.

"I don't understand you." I spoke instead of biting my bottom lip, throbbing again.

Edward nearly glared at me, huffing under his breath. "You're one to talk."

"You said so yourself that this was a fantasy. You said you were flexible."

"I know," he growled, still pacing.

"Now, all of a sudden, you're not playing along."

I, on the other hand, was fully ready to play dirty. I basically poured fuel on an open fire, using the spark of his red hot tattoo to light the first flame. The dress I was wearing tied with a single delicate ribbon around my neck and one simple tug had the entire thing plummeting to the floor around my feet in a pillowy cloud.

Edward groaned and turned away.

"Bella, stop it."

"I don't want to stop."

"It can't go back, once it's done," he sighed, pushing his hands through his hair and making it stand on end. He seemed fretful and wrung out as though he'd been put through the spin cycle too many times.

"Can't go back to what?"

"The other way. Your other life."

_This was one of those moments._

Those moments when the earth shifted. The winds changed. Poised on the razor-thin edge of a fork in the path, opportunity like an opiate, reality as crushingly sober as any comedown. From the top of my cliff, I had a really excellent view of all the potential misery that awaited me, far out there on the horizon. I deflated back onto the couch, naked and nearly heartbroken, sore and achy in places that hadn't felt much of anything for a long time. My ribs turned to steel, lungs trapped and heart rattling up against the cage like an empty tin cup.

I was sure he could hear it, the sound was deafening.

"This can only end badly." Edward spoke from across the room, gazing out the towering windows into the dark.

"I promise not to hurt you," I tried to sound sure of myself, but failed.

"I don't think you can keep that promise," he shook his head. "What is it that you want, exactly?" He turned to eye me sternly, as though he expected a solid answer.

"You're actually asking _me_ that?"

"Is it so unbelievable?" His eyebrow furrowed.

"Sort of," I grumbled, used to being led in this game and suddenly finding myself being forced to determine the steps. "I want this."

"I gathered that," he finally smiled at me. "You haven't put your clothes back on."

"What do _you_ want?" I threw the question back at him, not admitting to myself how curious I was to know the answer.

"You want to know what I _want_?" He let out a ragged gasp of air and clenched his fists at his sides. "I want your mouth. I want your skin and your bones and your blood. I want your fingers, _everywhere_, and I want that secret sort of smile you make when I look at you too long." He pointed at me, smile morphing into a smirk. "That one, right there."

_Fuck_.

I straightened my mouth, unaware I was doing anything with it in the first place. Did I smile when he looked at me? I gulped down the traitorous curve in my lip and bit it instead as Edward finally broke from his corner and stalked toward me. He fell to his knees and planted his hands deep in the couch cushions on either side of my hips.

"I want it all, Bella. I worry that I want it too much."

He leaned in and licked softly along my collar bone, clamping his hands to my sides and all of my skin boiled under his touch. Rubbed his face across my stomach, rough stubble and his hands gripping my sides, melting some of that steely metallic weight my ribs had turned into. He used two fingers to spread me open and set his mouth down over my clit, metal rings pressed tight to my sensitive skin and I shivered. His hand ground down around my breast, full of force and twisting my nipple just as he snaked his tongue out in a torturously slow, wickedly fast circuit through all my folds, kissing me wetly at the end of it before pulling away.

I was a panting, incoherent mess. Heaving lungs and trembling veins.

"I want to be inside of you for this." He rubbed his stubbled chin roughly against my pubic bone, kneading my ass with one hand and holding tightly to my side with another. I nodded frantically, willing to do just about anything if he'd just keep going and let him pick me up, wrapping my legs around his waist as he shuffled blindly to the bed, mouth to my neck and my fingernails to his skin.

Edward set me on the rumpled sheets and I glanced down at myself to check on the status of my tattoo, sure by now that it must be showing but I was still outwardly unadorned, much to my amazement. The whisper of his clothing against the carpet echoed in time to a foil wrapper between his teeth and I got lost in the swirling ink on his abs as he rolled a condom down around himself, huffing harshly under his breath.

There was a barbell.

Embedded at the very apex of that v in his hips, right there at the base of his shaft where his mosaic tattoo ended.

_Holy god._

I gaped up at him, not surprised at all to be met by a fully-formed smirk.

"It's more for you than for me, but that will have to wait." He leaned down to press his tongue between my lips, licking my teeth. "On your knees," he whispered against my mouth. "I don't want to hurt your foot."

I scrambled to my knees, threading my fingers through the sheets and putting my ass on display. Edward groaned and sunk two fingers into me, dotting my backside with wet prints of his mouth and almost pushed me right over again until I was whispering nothing but an unbroken string of _pleasepleaseplease_ into my chest. He muttered something to himself and growled when he finally pushed into me. I exhaled as he pulled out, moaned when he pushed back in and held himself there, his hands massaging my ass. Completely unable to put words into coherent thought and letting my mouth run wild. Edward joined me, sounds from his chest rumbling up and out of his mouth with every movement. His hips pressed tight up against me, swirling in a steady circular motion with the vague hint of unyielding metal in the soft spot between my pussy and my ass and I wrapped my feet around his legs to urge him closer, pressed to the soft damp creases on the backs of his knees. I nearly whined when I smashed myself forcefully back up against him, skin breaking out in a prickly wash of needles, searching blindly for that barbell with all my might.

"Jesusfuck," Edward nearly choked. His hand met my ass with a crack.

_Ow!_

I groaned instead. From my belly and full of more longing than I thought I had reserves of. I was sure that I'd reached my limit and here he was proving me wrong again. I gripped the sheets and did it again, squirming against him in search of something I could barely feel.

"_Shit_, Bella. Fuck," he growled, pushing and pulling and palming the red spot I'm sure had appeared from his slap. I bit into the sheets, moaning into the mattress, not entirely sure how much more of it I could take, tottering along the thin line that separated pleasure from pain. Edward slapped his palm firmly to my ass one last time, his other hand snaking around my front to fondle my clit and I was tumbling off that cliff before I'd even picked myself up from my last fall.

He slammed into me one final time, releasing with a strangled groan but I couldn't get my teeth to loosen their death-grip on the sheets in time to look back over my shoulder to see it.

* * *

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	26. Chapter 26

**Twenty Six**

This is for the ladies from **TLS**, who have inducted me.

**PAWs Peaches** especially because she's been leaving me the craziest, loveliest, squee-worthy reviews I've ever read.

And for everyone else who has been trudging along with me from the beginning - **wondering where that damn bell is** - this one is for you:

* * *

I woke up to Edward making constellations out of my freckles.

A fingertip drawn soft and smooth from one to another, fluttering from shoulder to hip, drifting languidly down my leg as he traced all the blistered blooming scars he'd left all over me. He stopped to inspect the bandage on the bottom of my foot, ensuring that it was still firmly attached before continuing his embellishments back up, getting distracted by my backside and cupping my bottom firmly. I blinked myself awake, a tumble of sheets and skin and ink in a chaotic mess before my eyes, sunshine and the salty breeze billowing in through the opened walls.

"Did you know? Before you married him?" Edward asked, voice rough with sleep and hair wickedly disheveled, smoldering around the edges from the sun like a fucking angel.

"Of course," I mumbled, rubbing my face with my hands, floundering out of a blissfully lavender scented sleep.

"There's got to be a reason, Bella. I don't understand." Still tracing my freckles, still hot enough to burn me and pretty enough that I'd let him ask me anything right now. "I'm in the dark," he claimed, despite his halo.

He scooped me off the mattress, settling me into his lap, my naked skin meeting the expectant erection he was sporting. I shrugged, trying to seem noncommittal and failing under his watchful eyes. Trying to remain focused, but really only wondering about that newly discovered barbell sitting somewhere just below me. I dug my fingers into his stomach and forced myself not to flex my hips in search for it.

"I . . . didn't really have a lot going for me when I met him."

Edward shook his head at me, eyes pinching as he told me silently that it wasn't enough.

"I owed a lot of money," I sighed, trying not to squirm.

"You don't strike me as a lynch pin. Or a gambler." He smirked, even though he was wrong. I _was_ gambling here, naked in his lap in the middle of the day and I didn't even care that his invisible tattoo was burning fault lines across my skin. Didn't care that Jasper was somewhere with Jacob and that Alice made my heart flutter like a newborn bird perched on the edge of its nest, wanting desperately to take flight but scared senseless that my feathers hadn't grown in yet. I was gambling on the slim hope that my thin shell could hold all of this after they were gone.

Betting on my resolve, which had never really been worth betting on to begin with.

"My mother died. Left me with a bunch of debt," I relented reluctantly. He raised his eyebrows in question and that's all it took. I gave in without hesitation. "A hundred grand in student loans and a house that wasn't even close to paid off. I only barely managed to keep the car, but I was drowning in collection notices."

"Didn't she have insurance?"

_Insurance?_ If he knew her, he wouldn't even bother to ask but I did my best to swallow down all the residual resentment I had for the woman and tried to answer him as neutrally as possible. "Not nearly enough to cover her tuition, much less how many times she changed her major. I paid off the truck and had a little money left over, but I lost the house and assumed all her outstanding loans."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Do you miss her, aside from the money?"

I shook my head firmly. It's hard to miss someone who lets their selfish side take their own life, along with three others, in a burning ball of vaguely car-shaped wreckage inspired by a bottle of pills and not enough self control. She tormented me as much in her after life as she did from the waking one.

"And how does Jasper fit into all of that?" Edward asked, obviously sensing that the topic of my mother was closed.

"He offered me an out," I glossed over. He had paid off every penny, in fact, and kept it a secret for a lot longer than he should have. It took nearly two years for me to notice the flat-out decline in those red-stamped envelopes and when I confronted him about it he only shrugged and told me that he hated the look on my face when I saw them.

"In exchange for _this_?" Edward flexed his hips beneath me, his dick slipping aside and the warm bite of metal suddenly rubbing _right_ up against me. I tried to be subtle about the shift in my hips, sliding a steel ball sneakily across my clit and hoping he wouldn't notice but he totally did. His eyelids fluttered minutely and he dig his fingers into my hips, forcing me to still.

"He doesn't get this part of me," I panted. "He's never seemed to want it."

"He's a fucking fool," Edward spat and sat upright underneath me. With an arm around my back he pulled me close and kissed me roughly, pinning my lips between my teeth and his lips rings. I used the moment to really dig my hips against him, rubbing myself forcefully against skin as hard a metal and metal hot as fire. _Goddamn_ that felt amazing. Edward sucked softly on my bottom lip as though he was apologizing for bruising it and released me with a gasp.

"Do you feel like you owe him? Is that why you stay?" He asked, hands skimming my skin and I wondered if he could feel it, my TNT tattoo simmering just under the surface.

"He's never made me feel that way." I shook my head, gulping down my urge to defend Jasper, whatever he was responsible for. He'd only done his best to take care of me, lavishing me in return for what he deemed the ultimate favor, making sure that I reaped the benefits of our situation just as much, if not more, than he did.

"I want to hate him," Edward mused, running a hand down my face, sounding sad, "but I can't."

"Don't hate him. He's everything to me."

Edward deflated back against the pillows and I looked at my hands splayed across his abs, all that intricate detail buried in his skin. The design was mirrored from beneath his belly button, something that looked like a tree sprouting beneath the faint trail of hair that meandered down his abdomen. From the tree spiraled two arcs of repetitive patterns, trailing along the side of his abs in monochrome black and grey tiles. Squares and rectangles in differing shades of overcast charcoal. Geometric flowers and delineated vines.

"What is all of this?" I marveled, tracing the endless lines with my fingers.

"The floor of a mosque I went to in Niamey." Edward glanced down at my hands, pressing back against the pillows and reassuming his hold on my hips. "It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. _Then_," he tacked on, fingernails to my skin as though it was a metaphor.

"Will you send me something? Something pretty, when you go back?"

"_When_ I go back?" He arched a cynical eyebrow at me.

"You are," I nodded at him, sure of it as my fingers reached the sprouting center of his tattoo, disappearing beneath me with the shining hint of metal if I pulled back far enough. I spread my hands back out across the mosaic, nails to his muscles and ground myself down on him and that barbell as though I was trying to prove a point.

Still squirming. Still on fire. Still perfectly content to burn.

"Maybe not," he groaned, hands to my hips as he helped move me across his piercing, pulling me firmly against him with his eyes locked on my face and his cock trapped in the hollow of my thigh. "Come with me."

"I don't belong there," I sighed, not entirely sure if he was talking about another continent, or another orgasm. I pulled back to push against him, letting him sink his fingers into the joints at my hips tight enough to make my legs go numb. He nearly groaned, tugging me forward and licking his lips as my mouth dropped open.

"I want to watch you do that again," he demanded, even if it did sound almost like a request.

"You want so much."

"It's hard not to be greedy." He shot me a devilish smile, unapologetic.

_Speaking of._

"Show me your bell. Please." I begged, thrusting my hips hard up against him, mashing myself into him mostly because he'd proven to be a bit of a sucker for it and he didn't disappoint.

Didn't hesitate.

Didn't even blink.

He released my hips and grabbed the two lip rings, stretching them down to expose the soft inside of his mouth, white teeth and pink gums and a tiny bell inked there in the scant empty space between the metal hoops. Small and simple and obvious.

_It had been in his mouth the entire time. _

I'd probably licked it without knowing every time we kissed. So close yet so far away and I wondered if his tongue was the body part Alice had been referring to all along, the part he wanted me to _get better acquainted with_. Wondered if he could feel it inked there into his flesh and if that's what he was doing every time he sucked those lips rings into his mouth while he stared at me.

* * *

I was sitting at the piano in the lobby that afternoon, trying to escape the metallic heaviness that had settled over everything when Carlisle found me. He ambled out of his office, looking distracted and excited and his face broke into a grin when he saw me.

"Ah, Bella. Just the person I wanted to see." Carlisle sat down next to me and smiled that winning smile in my direction, making me flounder inwardly. I didn't quite know how to react to him, knowing what I knew about Edward and everything we'd kept from him for the last five years. "I was hoping you'd give me a tour of your greenhouse. I haven't officially visited it yet."

"It's not mine," I hedged, not wanting to take any sort of responsibility that might fall onto Jasper later. "Alice only called it that on accident."

Carlisle chuckled. "She often says things before she thinks them through. I know you don't want to claim it, Bella, but it _was_ the reason Jasper wanted this place so badly. By all accounts it sounds magical and I believe you should be the person to show it to me."

He helped me to stand and kept a firm hold on my hand as I limped beside him on my toes, out of the lobby and through the jungle, stepping underneath his arm to enter the greenhouse, damp air adding to that all around heavy feeling. I kicked off my shoes, the sole of my foot feeling tight and pinched. Edward had changed the bandage before he allowed me to leave this morning and ordered me with a stern face not to go swimming.

_Doctor's orders._

"Esme told me that you asked about my opinion of Edward." Carlisle mused softly, eyes distracted as he wandered through the greenhouse, his voice echoing off the glass. I tightened my mouth, unwilling to deny it and sort of curious anyway. Better to get the story straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.

I stood underneath the ancient tree, letting it rain pink petals all over me and allowed Carlisle to ruin everything.

"Emmett is a good man, strong and dependable, but he's never shown much propensity for going above and beyond," Carlisle mused, sounding far away and thoughtful. I had no idea why we were talking about Emmett. "I owe much of our success to him, his determination and loyalty. He's happy to achieve the best but . . . he doesn't seem concerned with excelling. Edward, however . . . Edward has the potential to far exceed every expectation that I have of him." Carlisle stopped to inspect a trailing plant with tiny star-shaped flowers that were the oddest shade of lime green, fingering the soft leaves with a furrow between his eyebrows.

"Maybe your expectations aren't what he wants." I felt awkward defending Edward, knowing full well that I was only getting a glimpse at the very tip of the giant iceberg I'd been floating on for the last five years. Carlisle knew far more about him than I did and I knew just by the way he glanced at me, eyes narrowed, that I'd struck a nerve.

"I'm _trying_ to help him realize his full potential."

"He told me about your offer."

Carlisle lowered an eyebrow at me as though he hadn't expected Edward to do that. "We'd like him to accept. He's being very stubborn."

"Unlike Jasper?" I questioned, already used to staring the bull in the face and figuring that Edward probably learned all his tricks from his dad.

"They could both stand to learn something from your husband. He is a rare breed."

"I think both of your sons are starting to form some resentment. Your attachment is starting to show."

"He's become just as important to me. I _do_ think of him as a son, find myself proud of his achievements. I look forward to the day he comes out."

_Hold the fuck up._

"When . . . _who_ comes out?" I stammered, blinded by panic.

"Jasper, of course."

"You _know_?" I choked on my own heart. Spluttering and coughing and chock full of fear.

"Well, I've always known, Bella." Carlisle eyed me solemnly. "From the first moment I met him, if I'm completely honest. He wasn't quite so skilled at keeping it hidden in the beginning, his penchant for shoes notwithstanding. You've been quite the distraction all these years."

There it was again.

Me as the distraction.

"Why have you allowed us to do this for so long? It must have become a joke to you." My face reddened, imaging what he must have thought watching Jasper and I flirt with the facade of married life together. Carlisle smiled softly at me, the same smile he used on Esme when she did something particularly endearing.

"I admire your dedication Bella. I know very few people in this world who could ever compete with you. I also know that you make him a better person, though I don't quite understand how you've manage to improve on an already good thing."

"He doesn't need me. He's shines on his own."

"You speak the truth, as ever. His unveiling will be the spark that changes it all."

"Changes what?"

"Our world. I _know_ these people," Carlisle nearly growled. "I know their prejudices and their intolerance. I know that the only way to make a point in this world is to smash that point to pieces and Jasper is doing just _that_ without much help from me. He's going to take all of their assumptions and press it right up into their faces until they're forced to yield."

"You can't do this. He's worked too hard," I wavered, close to bursting into tears.

"Precisely, Bella. And his hard work is going to open the doors for _so many_ others who would never have been given a chance. Don't you see? His success will prove them wrong, but he has to _succeed_ first."

"And Edward? He has just as much to prove." I couldn't understand how one person could be so passionate about one side of the spectrum without realizing the validity of the opposite. How he feel so strongly about Jasper while brushing his colorful, capable son aside. Carlisle

"I understand that this is not where Edward belongs. He hates it here, the computers and the phone calls and the board meetings. He belong in the trenches, in the blood and the guts. Not here."

"So you're trying to push him away," I mumbled.

"I'm not pushing him _away_, I'm pushing him to be as important as he possibly can. The same applies for Jasper, I'm hoping to uncover their full potential." He sounded almost excited and I really hoped that our life wasn't about to become a giant spectacle.

"You have to tell him," I begged. "Give him some warning. Please don't surprise him with this."

"Of course not. I respect him too much to even consider such a thing. Please don't cry, this will be a good thing."

I gulped down my tears, struggling to hold myself upright underneath a crumbling roof and falling down sky. I had to find Jasper.

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**reviews = love**

**AND - Go listen to this song RIGHT NOW.**

The Con - Tegan and Sara

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I post teasers over at the **Fictionators** every Monday. Just sayin'.


	27. Chapter 27

**The Lemonade Stand **has included me in their** Fic of the Week**.

In the great words of Ani DiFranco: **Vote, dammit.**

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**Twenty Seven**

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I opened the front door to Jacob standing in my room.

Fresh-faced and dreamy-eyed.

"Bella," he stuttered, eyes widening frantically for a fraction of a second before he caught himself. "Mrs. Hale." The way he said my name, wrapped in his thick accent like an over-taped gift, was the most beautiful way I'd ever heard it spoken out loud before. He dropped his gaze to the floor.

"Jacob," I sighed, stepping into the villa and shutting the door behind me. "You can call me Bella. _Please_, call me Bella."

"I-," he opened his mouth but paused, eyeing me warily, looking nearly terrified. Caught on a downslide and unable to stop himself. I could commiserate, I hardly knew what to say to the boy. Just as I was about to urge him to continue, or plead with him to stop, caught between reassurance and jealousy, Jasper appeared from the bathroom, freshly showered and damp-haired. Nearly glowing, something buried beneath his skin that I'd never seen on him before.

This was a new Jasper, freshly broken from a new mold and I could barely admit it to myself that he looked like he was in _love._

"Hello, Darling." He kissed my cheek and I watched a drop of water fall from the end of one of his curls to his shirt, staining a dark mark on the light blue fabric.

"We have to talk." I tried to tell him with just my eyes that this was serious but we obviously didn't have quite the connection that Edward and Alice shared, his lighthearted smile feeling too airy for all the weight I was strapped to. "It's about Carlisle," I finished lamely, still staring at him.

Jasper turned away from me and gripped Jacob's hand tight enough to turn his knuckles white, Jacob returning the gesture with one of those blinding, beautiful smiles.

"I'll see you soon," Jasper said softly.

Jacob's eyes darted to mine, the smile still on his face. "Bella," he practically whispered, sounding nearly joyful. I nodded at him, unable to get my mouth to form his name in response before he turned and did more of that silent floating thing toward the door.

"Soon?" I questioned Jasper quietly, watching him go.

"I invited him to go to the Capitol with me, but only because you declined."

"He didn't have to leave. He could have stayed," I said as the door shut behind Jacob, a fleeting glance over his shoulder before he disappeared.

"It's better if he doesn't. I plan to move him up to management and I'd rather he remain shielded from our upper level drama."

"You're _promoting_ him?" I was worried it would be too obvious, a preference that didn't have an explanation.

"He's quick. Intelligent," Jasper stopped short, looking as though he could continue complimenting Jacob for hours. "We've only got a couple of days to finalize the dock and reconvene the management before we leave. I'd feel better if he had some invested say in it."

"You're leaving?"

"_We're_ leaving," he said blandly, eyeing me as though I'd missed something clearly important.

"Where are we going?"

"Home, of course."

"When?" I stuttered, trying not to sound panicked.

"Two days."

"Two _days_?" I felt like we'd only been here a matter of hours.

"I have to get back. _You_ have to get back. Esme told me about the Mirabell dinner, you know that you should be there."

"I forgot. It's not that important." Compared to all of this, nothing seemed to matter that much anymore. The very _last_ thing I wanted to do was go to that damned dinner.

"It _is_ important, Bella. Much more important than anything I have to get back for. Besides, your ensemble every year only outshines the year before and I'm looking forward to being your escort."

"I'm sure Rose has something ridiculous planned," I huffed. She hadn't shown me the newest Mirabell dress yet, but from the way that she raved about it, I was in for trouble. Last year it was a blue puffed dress that made me feel like a north-shore wave the day after a hurricane, furiously ruffled fabric too enormous for me to control. The year before that it was something slinky and far too short, the color of an abused grape. The incarnation outfit had been a green dress that reminded me of something I wore in a ballet recital.

When I was four.

"Carlisle knows about you. About us."

"I know. He spoke to me about it this morning." Jasper sat heavily on the sofa and I collapsed next to him, our hands finding one another's out of habit and I leaned on his shoulder for support in case my spine gave out.

"He wants to out you," I whispered.

"Yes, though I can see his point. He promised to protect me, retain me at whatever cost. I haven't asked if this was his plan all along, or something he only recently came up with, but I have the feeling Marcus had something to do with it." Jasper suddenly turned and gripped my chin in his fingers, forcing my eyes to his with his brows furrowed in the middle. "I've been terrible about this. I never even bothered to ask you what you wanted for the rest of your life. Did you want to live on a farm, or something else extravagant?"

"Not really." I shook my head in amazement. "Why the sudden worry about me? I'm worried about _you_."

"Carlisle. He was concerned about you, your involvement with me and what it meant. I think he believed I was keeping you against your will. Am I?"

"Of course not," I shook my head.

"What about children? Did you want to be a mother?" He rubbed his thumb softly across the back of my hand. "There are ways, you know . . . ."

"Are you telling me to have Edward's baby?" I asked, skeptical that I was following the conversation correctly and sure that I was misunderstanding something.

"No," Jasper snorted. "I'm certain I could knock you up if you wanted me to."

I shook my head, babies really the last thing on my mind at the moment and tucked my face into his neck, letting his familiar smell wash over all the other scents that had been tormenting me lately and putting every spare ounce of wishful thinking into the meager chance that I might somehow come out of this intact.

* * *

Jasper left a few hours later, feathering my face with kisses before disappearing out the door. He was returning tomorrow and apparently we were leaving after that. I gave him a ten minute head start before I left the villa.

Found Alice in Edward's bed.

Sobbing.

Channeling her cartoon characterization and threatening to submerge the room in tears, bed and all. The pillow was damp, her face splotchy red and she held out her arms with her bottom lip trembling, silently pleading with me. I climbed into the bed, beneath the covers and wrapped my arms around her, letting her hiccup into my neck.

"Where is Edward?" I asked and Alice nearly wailed in response.

"I don't know. He left. We got in an argument."

"Want to tell me what this is about?" I tried again, holding her close enough that I could feel her heart thumping madly under her chest. She was naked, warm and soft and fit right up against me in ways I couldn't even explain.

"It's Dayo," she spluttered, breaking into a fresh wave of tears.

"Is he ok?" _Shit_. The very last thing I thought Alice needed was another close-to-home death.

"His fiancé is dead," she mumbled into my chest. "I feel so terrible."

_Oh, thank god. _"Death is a given, Alice. You know this." I held her tight and tried to reason with her. "There's nothing you could have done, even if you had been there."

"I've been wishing for it," she whispered. "_Hoping_ for it. Wanting him to be free and now he is and I'm the _worst_ person in the world."

More sobbing. More snotting.

"You couldn't have anything to do with it, Alice. You're halfway around the world."

"You'd be surprised what I can do if I really set my mind to it." Her voice went soft and strong and so sure of herself that I wondered if she really _did_ think she could actually wish someone to death.

"How did you find out?"

"He sent a letter. Esme's housekeeper called. I made her read it to me over the phone."

"And?"

"I have to go, Bella. Even if we can't be together, I have to be near him." Alice plucked a dog-eared photograph from beneath the pillow. He _was_ beautiful, strikingly exotic with skin of the darkest ebony. Deep set eyes the color of almonds and a wide, soft mouth. Chiseled cheekbones and hair shorn close to his scalp. Regal, even without the adornments.

There was an intricate pattern of raised scars framing his eyes like a mask.

Curling across those high set cheekbones and dancing along his eyebrows. The scars were just a shade lighter than the rest of his skin and gave him a fearsome quality that his eyes couldn't quite live up to. It took me forever to peel the details out of her but I finally began to understand why Alice was so torn. Dayo had wanted to break off his engagement, a promise arranged when he was too young to walk to a girl he had never met, in order to be with Alice. Any commoner might have been able to pull it off, but those with genetic responsibility of chiefdom weren't so lucky.

"I'm not exactly the best match for him, you know?" She wrinkled her nose.

"Because of your tattoos?"

"And my pale skin. Half of them think I'm a witch."

I glanced down at us, fumbled up together in Edward's bed. All my plain skin against her riot of color. Her garter belt leg thrown over mine, bleeding heaven arm across my stomach, sparkling diamond jewelry setting tiny star-shaped indentations into my chest. My fingers were absently stroking the words that danced across her rib cage, looking ancient and fanciful.

Vaguely recognizable but fully unreadable.

"Your words . . . what do they say?"

"It's part of a poem," she exhaled, goosebumps rising beneath my fingertips despite the heat.

"Will you tell me?" I gave her the option to decline. Now that I knew her tattoos likely had some heavy sort of meaning attached to them, I was almost afraid to ask. Alice pulled herself off me, sticky skin peeling from sticky skin and sat up facing the ocean. I lay beside her, setting my fingertips to the words and feeling her bones shift underneath me every time she took a breath, following along as she spoke.

"_I won't flinch and I won't blame you. Instead, I will remember the kisses, our lips raw with love. And how you gave me everything you had and how I offered you what was left of me. And I will remember your small room, the feel of you, the light in the window, your records, your books, our morning coffee, our noons, our nights, our bodies spilled together, sleeping, the tiny flowing currents, immediate and forever, your leg, my leg, your arm, my arm, your smile and the warmth of you, who made me laugh again."_

My fingers traced the last word as her voice wavered off.

"Why isn't it in English?" I was still tracing the font, scripted text that looked like something pulled off an ancient stone found buried under a sand dune in the desert somewhere. Alice shrugged beneath me, huffing under her breath and biting her lip before she spoke.

"So that no one can read it."

I gulped, sure in an instant just _who_ she didn't want reading it. "Edward?" I asked softly, still tracing her ribs and resisting the urge to press my lips to every word, head full of the images they conjured. Heart picking up speed as Edward's elephants found themselves entwined with Alice's peacock feathers. Dandelion seeds dancing together and a cityscape mashed up against mother nature.

The white dove landing softly on the intricately tiled floor of a mosque.

"Don't tell him," she whispered.

"I think he's in love with you," I swallowed painfully. "He won't admit it."

"He's just convinced that he owes me his life. He gets confused." Alice shook her head, a healthy gust of air billowing into the villa, adding a dram of much needed lavender buzz to my clenched stomach and reeling head.

"_Does_ he owe you?" I asked. The way he looked at her with something behind his eyes that bordered up on religious reverence was really only explained by a moment tainted by a battle over that very thin line between life and death. A moment on the brink that bonded them forever. As though they'd spent centuries with each other, lifetimes rolled over and over and over until they started blending together and maybe she'd saved his life in each and every one.

"Sort of, though the doctor in him would never admit it."

"How?" I stuttered.

"Malaria. I didn't think he was going to make it, he was practically hallucinating when he finally came-to. He thought I was an angel for almost a week."

He appeared as though she had summoned him, framed in the doorway like a portrait with his face tight. He was wearing that ratty t-shirt again, jeans stained dark to the knee and I wondered if he'd been standing out in the water.

Alice clambered off me, perching on her knees at the edge of the bed with her arms stretched out in front of her and something in his face changed instantly. He strode to the bed and let her fling herself up against him, arms around her waist, their tattoos bleeding together and his fingers casting shadows where they dug into her skin. Crumpling the words on her ribs in his grip. She was still naked and he was still resolutely keeping his eyes off of her, glancing distractedly across the rumpled mess of his bed before finally finding me.

Every inch of my own naked skin flared up in a blistering wave of scorching heat.

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reviews = love

**Ok folks - this is where we all draw our lines. The meek from the brave. **

**These characters aren't perfect and this ain't no fucking fairytale, ok? Love isn't cut and dry and if that's what you wanted, ****you'd be re-reading SM's version for the _millionth_ time in a row. Love tastes like a every flavor of ice cream, _ever_ - all at the same time. ********The following lemons are tart and come in multiples . . . _with_ multiples . . . . and I'm not apologizing.**

**You are here for a reason. And you have a decision to make. **

I'll upload 28 on Friday. You have three days to think it over.

Hope I see you there. ;)

**Remember: the lion eats the weakest antelope. **

**(I hate this rambling AN:BS, btw.)**


	28. Chapter 28

**Twenty Eight**

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**To Hadley Hemingway who endures my frantic ramblings _and_ meeting me in real life, a****nd Reds_Red who is my fishy soulmate and gets me drunk on jello shots. ****I couldn't have done this without either of you.**

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"Kiss me."

I barely heard Alice's whisper, caught up in his skin and his hair, too focused on his fingers as they suddenly flexed into her and the faint rushing hiss of air as he gasped. He pulled his gaze off me, eyelids fluttering as she set her mouth to his neck.

"I thought you never wanted to sleep with me again," Edward faltered under her mouth. He sounded almost nervous, jittery and uncertain, trying not to look at me.

"_Shut up_. Kiss me," Alice repeated against his skin, voice gone low and graveled from all her crying and the curves of her ass were smiling at me despite all of her seriousness. I swallowed, unavoidably curious to see if he would do as she asked. Part of me wanted to see it, if only for the confirmation and another part of me _really_ wanted to see it, but for my own voyeuristic urge. The mosquito netting was draped on either side of them, brushing their arms and peaking above their heads, framing what was an indecently erotic picture painted just for me.

"Dayo?" He asked, obviously faltering on the same lip of that cliff I'd been launching myself off of lately.

"Don't talk to me about him," she spat as she pulled away, freeing herself from his grip by prying his fingers from her skin. I had the feeling Alice tended to deal with her feelings by drowning them with equal combinations of liquor and denial and Edward.

"Alice, I-" Edward stumbled over his words when her fingers found his t-shirt. He muttered something dirty under his breath when she pulled it over his head and nearly growled as she went for the button of his jeans. He grabbed her by both wrists and wrenched his hips out of her reach.

"What in the world are you doing?" He scowled at her, eyebrows compacted, hair gone as wild as his voice.

"I'm the _ocean_, remember?" Alice hissed but I had no time to even wonder what she'd meant by that. She pulled her hands free, surprisingly strong for their difference in size and plunged her fingers into the front of his pants, pulling him roughly toward her. "If you won't kiss me, I'll take what I can get."

Both of us watched in dumbstruck awe as she quickly opened his fly and pulled his cock free, sinking her mouth down over him deep and fast so that he didn't have time to stop her. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely mesmerized, holding onto the sheets to keep myself from floating away; Edward, however, was light years ahead of me, mouth gaping open as he stared down at her. Alice sucked up his shaft and pulled off with a pop, his dick growing steadily in her fist and glistening from the moment it spent inside of her mouth. She swirled her tongue around the tip, fingers wrapped around the length and his hand came down on the top of her head, tattooed light bulbs to her hair. He threw his chin back, his own eyes fluttering closed as he groaned deeply before fisting through her hair and nearly wrenching her off of him. His hand clutched the back of her neck as he pulled her to her knees and kissed her.

Hard.

"Ow!" She wrenched away, a hand to her mouth. "_Edward!_"

He was panting heavily, looking nearly drugged and not at all sorry. "Your fault."

He took her by the chin, inspecting her mouth before catching my eye just beyond the diamonds in her face. He licked his bottom lip and turned her face deliberately toward me, still sitting breathless and spellbound in his sheets. He didn't even say anything but it was almost as though he'd given her some secret code, transfered at a pitch too high for my normal human hearing.

Her eyes changed, tongue swiping across her top lip.

Body changed, going suddenly feral and hungry.

Breath stilled for an instant before she launched at me.

She flattened me against the pillows, peppering my stomach with a damp rosette of kisses blooming all over my burning, filigree tattoo. My skin went up in a rash of needles, just on this side of painful and my heart was back to its frantic-pony gallop, bashing itself up against my rib cage like it might break free. God I wanted her mouth _everywhere_, the comfortable burn she left behind her and she licked along my hip bones, uncannily following Edward's tattoo as though she could see it. Edward pushed the rest of his clothing off and stepped right up to the edge of the mattress with his hands at the creases of her hips and she nuzzled her face into me before I even had time to prepare.

"God, Bella," Alice drug her tongue softly around my clit, breathing her words into my skin. "You taste like a drug."

I squirmed, sinking my teeth into my lip and my hands into her hair, moaning behind my tongue as Edward tossed a foil wrapper over his shoulder and slid a condom down over himself. He leaned across Alice's back, planting his hands on either side of my hips and pressed his cheek to her ear, watching her actions intently. Those burning green eyes locked on her mouth and my pussy as he put his lips to her shoulder and bit her dandelions.

Metal and teeth nearly piercing her flesh.

Alice pulled off with a hiss and Edward's exhale hit me like an ice storm.

"Gentle," she whispered and he licked the spot his teeth had been a moment before, managing to look apologetic but not sounding that way at all.

"You never liked it that way before."

Edward's hand snaked up underneath her, palming her tits and pulling softly on her barbells before slipping up her neck and gripping her chin. He angled her mouth toward his, her fingers sunk into my hips and I watched his tongue press up against her until she yielded, opening to allow him inside. I wondered if she tasted like me when he kissed her.

Just from the change in his face, I could tell the exact moment his slid into her. He scrunched his eyes closed, biting viciously at her bottom lip and Alice groaned, arching her back. Edward tucked his chin to watch himself pull out, still palming her neck gently as he pressed back in with his cheek scraping my knee.

Alice set her mouth back up against me with a low groan, teeth to my sensitive skin and I shivered violently, squirming beneath her, everything sparking blindingly white behind my eyes. A sizzling shock that sent my head cartwheeling. Edward let out a rough gasp of air, nearly collapsing on top of Alice to wrap his stray hand around my thigh, pinning her to the mattress with his arm still underneath her. He gripped me firmly, finding leverage with his fingers splayed across my skin.

_O.p.e.n. _

"Holy fuck, do that again," he grunted, eyes still trained on her tongue torturing me. He thrust himself into her, Alice hummed behind her tongue and sucked hard on my clit, that scorch of electricity buzzed through me like a bullet and I gasped again. Edward groaned in response and I wondered if he could feel it, the fiery backdraft, as he set our speed. Harder and faster. Alice was forced face-first into me every time he ground himself into her, sucking soft and hard and _everywhere_.

He watched every last moment of it.

Pressed down over Alice as though he was pinning her in place and flexing his hips methodically against hers. Mouthing her neck and shoulders, leaving bruises behind him like he was marking her for something. Palm still wrapped around her throat and I could feel Alice's breathing start to falter, her moaning against my skin degrading into something heavy and erratic. I got a completely unique perspective on her orgasm when Edward shoved her forcefully into me, thrusting himself deep and shallow through her entire fall.

"That's it," he huffed, pulling himself upright to grip her ass and pound into her. "Come hard for me."

Demanding it and she complied instantly.

Moaning into me soft enough to send warm-wash shock waves across all of my skin. Hard enough to vibrate me over the lip, and I dug my toes into her shoulders when I came as though he'd been talking to me too. Trying my best not to thrust up into her face as she blindly licked everything she could reach with her nose buried so deeply I was worried she might suffocate herself.

"Stop." Edward took a single step backward and yanked Alice away by the hips, a sudden rush of freezing cold air taking over where her hot breath left off. I clamped my hands down over my pussy, trying to keep myself from tottering off the edge again simply from the sudden lack of stimulation. I gulped air as he pulled himself slowly out of her, giving her ass one final knead as he emerged and she flounced around to face him, perched on the edge of the bed with a frown on her face.

Edward smiled at her and leaned down, kissing her softly, nearly the opposite of his first harsh attempt. "That felt incredible, but I want to be in her for this," he spoke against her mouth. He discarded his condom and flopped down beside me, pushing pillows out of the way and pulling me onto his lap, handing me a fresh silver square and I had to conjure up my far away high school health classes just to remember how to get the damn thing on him. My hands slipped against his skin and he ground his teeth together as he watched me.

I exhaled every breath I'd ever taken as I settled on top of him, stretching with a sharp spark of heat that faded to a dull, glowing burn, the metal barbell piercing the base of his dick rubbing with thoughtful precision up against my clit.

"_Oh_," I gasped, digging crescent shaped marks into his abs and tucking my chin so that my face was mostly hidden. I was sure that I was flushed red and damp around the edges without the benefit of a bunch of ink to disguise it.

Alice appeared beside me, sweeping her leg over Edward and sitting nearly on his chest with the barbells through her nipples pressed right up against my own. She kissed me softly on the mouth just once before dragging her lips to my neck and clutching firmly at two handfuls of my ass.

"Take it from him," she whispered and pulled my hips toward hers, grinding me down on his barbell and I moaned, Edward groaning along. He reached over Alice and fumbled blindly for me, fingers fluttering along my thighs before finding a firmer grip on hers. Sunken into her peacock feathers and nearly threading through that silky garter belt.

The gun skewed under his grip, warping with her skin.

Alice tugged me along to the change in Edward's grip, moving a hand to cup my tits and pressing her thumb against my nipple. I ground myself into her _and_ him, circling my hips and throwing my head back, giving her access to my neck as I pulled off him to sink back down. He moaned again, legs twitching beneath me, pinned down by both of us.

"Oh fuck, Edward," Alice suddenly pulled her mouth off me, her hand gripping my tit viciously as her chin dropped to her chest and she set her forehead to my heartbeat. I glanced down her back, the rounded curve of her ass and Edward's face just beyond it, his hand splayed out along the crease with his thumb tucked firmly inside. His mouth was open, eyes glazed over as he watched himself finger her, gaze meeting mine for a single moment before he threw his head back against the mattress.

"Grind on me, Bella," he moaned, "fuck me." He flexed his hips under mine and I pushed forward out of pure instinct, holding onto Alice's hips to steady myself. Edward hissed, his fingers flexing into her skin as his other arm snaked around her waist to hold her close and she exhaled heavily, moving her hand to set her mouth over my nipple, smoldering and damp. I pushed again, half to get more of me into her mouth, half to enjoy the delicious slide of him along my insides and to feel my clit mash up against that barbell of his.

In the whole miserable universe, there was nothing but this.

Alice's teeth around my nipple.

Edward's eyes just beyond her ass, tattooed arms across her tattooed hips and his thumb thrusting into her to match every grind of my own. He lifted his gaze to meet mine, sucked his lip rings into his mouth and I broke open.

Spilled everything I had and sunk my fingernails into Alice in case I tried to evaporate clear away.

She followed, bucking her hips into my nails and then back against his thumb.

Edward murmured something under his breath and thrust his hips off the bed, emptying himself as Alice and I clutched each other on top of him.

Eyes closed.

* * *

I woke up in his bed.

Mid afternoon. Sore in every place that counted and my foot aching something wicked. Alice was gone, the glass walls were thrown open and Edward was pacing the deck outside in nothing but his boxer briefs. Phone to his ear and hair casting a chaotic blotch against the sky. Covered in ink and sun and way too much temptation. I lay there and watched him for nearly an hour, wrapped up in his sheets and his smell. He stopped his pacing several times to stare inside the villa, his face alternating between anger and something that looked an awful lot like sadness, but I couldn't tell if he knew I was awake or not.

I eventually gave up on him and slipped from the bed, wincing in pain and nearly falling over when my foot hit the floor. It hurt badly enough that I ended up hopping the few steps to the bathroom, jumping up onto the counter and putting both of my feet in the sink. I rested my bad foot on my knee to get a better look at it and slowly peeled off the bandage, eyes watering as it pulled at skin that felt as fragile as blown glass.

How could something that small hurt so badly?

There was a gash just under the ball of my big toe, three neat stitches sunken through the inflamed skin, threading me back together. I swear just looking at it made it hurt twice as bad and my eyes prickled again out of instinct. Edward appeared in the doorway just as I was gearing myself up to poke at it.

"You seem to have an aversion to clothing," he teased, eyeing my ensemble which was really nothing but a bunch of hair.

"It gets in the way." I held my foot out toward him, the throbbing not nearly as bad now that he was around. Maybe I was just distracted. "Does this look ok to you?"

He peered at my foot, wrapping his hands around my ankle and nodded. "Yes. It's going to be sore for a few days but let's clean it up, for good measure."

All I could do was watch. All I could see was him hovering over Alice last night. All I could hear were his groans as we pinned him to the mattress. All I could think about was the bell in his mouth.

"What did Alice mean last night, that she's the ocean?" I asked as he held my foot under the stream of warm water.

Edward rolled his eyes and ground his teeth together. "I'm the stone," he grumbled.

"Are you scared she's going to swallow you?"

"Terrified."

I watched in silence as he washed my foot, soft and sure and gentle, his face a lot harder than his hands. He patted it dry and smeared some antibiotic on it and I wondered if last night hadn't been more about the two of them saying goodbye to each other than anything else.

"Let's let this dry some before we cover it up again." He let my leg dangle off the counter, but it only started throbbing again. I winced, picking it back up to counter height, sure for a moment that my heart had bought up prime real estate right there along the curve of my insole. Edward eyed me thoughtfully for a moment, obviously reading my face. He picked my leg up by the ankle, setting my injured foot on his shoulder and it instantly stopped throbbing. He pressed his abdomen up against the counter, coming at me with his mouth and forcing my head back against the mirror to kiss me. I slumped against the glass, my good foot snaking around his hips to pull him closer as he licked everything he could reach between my ears and my collar bones, noises in his chest that sounded like starvation.

Edward pulled his mouth off me, breathing raggedly as he snaked a hand down my side. With my knee pinned near my cheek and my other pushed aside I was spread eagle for him and he wiped his fingers against me, grinning to himself as they slipped along and sinking two of them firmly inside.

"Oh f-" I gasped, choking off my words with my teeth to my lip and Edward rubbed the pads of his fingers firmly against me, growling into my breasts.

"Say it." He glanced up at me, his mouth gone red and pulled his fingers free, pressing them back in and rubbing my clit with his thumb. "You make even the simplest words sound dirty. _Say it_."

"_Fuck_," I exhaled heavily.

"Again," he whispered, lips to my ear and I shivered a frozen blizzard of snowflakes.

"Fuck," I complied, moaning the word rather than saying it. I held onto his hair, pulling his face up hard against my neck when I came.

"Goddamn, that's good," he growled, pulling my nipple into his mouth, fingers sliding sloppily against me as I clenched, trembling against the mirror. When he finally pulled his fingers free he tucked them into his mouth, cheeks hollowing just like they did when he smoked. He stepped away, my foot still propped on his shoulder and rummaged through a toiletry bag on the far end of the counter, producing a new bandaged. The tension had slipped from his face for the few minutes he had his fingers in me, but it was back again, settled into the wrinkles between his eyebrows like lead.

"Are you ok?" I asked, knowing that whatever that never-ending phone call had been about, it had something to do with what was happening to his face. He didn't look at me, but his eyes narrowed as he peeled open the bandage.

"I'm good," he hedged. "Happy."

"You don't look happy."

"I'm happy," he retorted, robotically monotone.

"Then why do you look so sad?"

His eyes finally landed on me and I was the one lone tree left standing in the middle of an atomic crater, stunted from the nuclear blast and stubbornly ignoring the crippling aftershock of radiation.

"Because I can't have you," he sighed. "Because everyone is going back to their real lives tomorrow and this feels like some cruel joke someone is playing on me."

A knock on the front door startled us both. Edward stepped away from me, gingerly adjusting the front of his briefs with a wince. I held my perch on the counter, watching him try to flatten down his hair as he left the bathroom, but nothing he did helped.

Jasper was on the other side of the door.

* * *

**reviews = love**

Remember my fancy AN from the last chapter?

**Yeah, that applies again.**

**AND -** you can still vote at **The Lemonade Stand** - Just sayin'.


	29. Chapter 29

**Twenty Nine**

* * *

*Straps on helmet*

* * *

I hopped off the counter as I listened to Edward let Jasper inside, careful to land on my good foot and leaping for the bathrobe that was hanging on the back of the door. I pulled it around myself and glanced up to find the boys standing in the hallway. Jasper, with his hands in his pockets and a tempered grin on his face, Edward in nothing but his underwear and a raging hard on, wild hair and lip rings.

Both of them staring at me.

"Well, hey there, beautiful. Haven't seen you in a while. Thought I'd check in." Jasper smirked, licking his lips and I stalked out of the bathroom the best I could on a broken foot. He immediately scowled at my limp and his eyes darted to my face. "What happened to your foot?"

"I fucked it up. Surprised?" I huffed, teetering to a standstill beside them, trying to ignore half-naked Edward and the slow drip that was steadily running down my thigh. Jasper put a steady hand under my elbow and I slumped up against him, not entirely sure why I felt like crying and my face broke out in a prickly wave of trembly emotion before I could stop it.

_What was wrong with me?_

"We need to talk." Edward looked squarely at Jasper, stone faced but I could see him prodding that bell on the inside of his mouth, the lip rings moving slightly. Jasper eyed me thoughtfully and nodded, ushering me to the couch and settling beside me. Edward sat in a low white chair across from us, splotches of ink and flashes of metal against the pale fabric.

He wasted no fucking time.

"She's in love with you."

I gaped at Edward._ He did not just do that_. A quick glance at Jasper, also gaping, confirmed that he _had_ just done that and I broke out in a fresh wave of skin-prickling sweat. Not sure if I wanted to kill him or beat him senseless.

"Did she tell you that?" Jasper asked lowly.

"No. She doesn't need to," Edward scoffed. "You can see it written all over her."

I actually thought it was his paisley tattoo that my skin was adorned with, but I was beginning to understand that I was the only one who could see that. I was certainly the only one who could feel it, and god, it was _burning. _Dynamite lines of fire that traced the errant pathways of my veins. Both of them were looking at me and I stared at my lap, wringing my fingers and wondering if this is what Alice felt like when I tried to stand up for her against Edward's better judgement.

"I want you to get her off. You owe her that, at least." Edward continued, obviously on a roll.

"And how, _exactly_, did you come to that conclusion?" Jasper retorted.

"You've been stringing her along for years," Edward hissed back.

"I have not," Jasper spat fiercely, on his feet in an instant, pacing with freshly lit agitation. "I've been _waiting_ for her."

"For _me_?" I blurted, pulled from my enthralled witness of their standoff. I struggled to my own feet as Jasper turned toward me with a look of near desperation on his face.

"For you to find someone. I didn't want to feel like I was abandoning you. I didn't want _you_ to feel like that."

"For how long?" I gasped, wondering if we'd only made it this far because of me and my inability to want something other than what I had. Jasper tucked his mouth to the side wistfully and shook his head at me.

"As long as it took."

"You can't be telling me that there was never anyone you felt strongly about." That was a lie and I knew it. Too many flavors of cologne for the single bottle in his bathroom.

"Never anyone that I _allowed_ myself to," Jasper shook his head, eyeing me warily.

"But there have been times it could have been something? If I wasn't involved?"

"Yes," he nodded tightly.

"Alec?" I asked, referring to the boy with the dark hair and the nearly black eyes who talked with his mouth perched to the side and his hands fluttering around his face. I was certain something was going on between them but he'd disappeared just as quickly as he'd shown up and I'd thought at the time that he'd moved away. Now, I wasn't so sure.

"Possibly," Jasper shrugged, "but I've told you before, you will _always_ be my first pick, no matter who is hanging from the other end of the rope."

"But why?" I stammered.

"Because you picked _me_. You've allowed me to be _this_ person for you, for five _years_ and I can only hope that I've managed to give you the same in return. Have I?"

"That, and more," I exhaled. His devotion was so thorough it was hard to see through sometimes. I knew that he loved me, deeply and completely. Knew that I was the first thing he thought about in the morning and the last at night, just before he fell asleep. Knew that he'd done nothing for five years except make me feel significant.

And Edward was right. I loved him, too.

_Absolutely_

"Do you want this from me?" He stretched an arm out toward Edward, still seated and watching us intently.

My tongue turned to lead. Mouth coated in concrete and lungs filled full of gravel. I was supposed to say yes. Was supposed to nod my head or even jump right into his arms and make him take me the way I'd been dreaming of for years. I was supposed to want nothing more than this.

_Why was I frozen? _

Jasper sighed and stepped toward me. Fingers to my skin and I melted in a moment.

The lone iceberg in the middle of a blissfully warm desert.

Down to a pool of tepid water the instant as he tugged me close, oddly peaceful and downright grateful that I didn't have to be so cold anymore. I stared up at him, waiting for him to come down to my mouth like he always did but he shook his head at me, holding me tightly up against him. He tilted his chin at me as he spoke, voice low and demanding, holding his breath.

"No. You kiss _me_."

* * *

I was unpacking boxes when he appeared.

Looking flushed and breathless and anxious as a hunted rabbit.

"Are you ok?" I stood, dropping whatever I'd been holding back into the box at my knees. I'd spent most the day trying to sort through the last of our leftover boxes, the big empty house suddenly full of our belongings, reminding me that we really _did_ live here now. I wasn't used to such lavish surroundings and still felt a little out of sorts amid the granite and marble and polished glass.

"I have something to ask you." Jasper gulped, fumbling in his pocket and emerging with something small fisted deep in his palm, dropping to his knee in front of me. He was biting his bottom lip, eyebrows crunched together and my stomach rolled over with a thousand manic butterflies when he produced a ring.

"Will you marry me?" He asked, releasing his lip and pushing the ring onto my finger.

"Are you fucking joking?" I gasped. All those fluttery butterflies were threatening to bubble up my throat and I clamped a hand to my mouth, staring down at the ring he was slipping over my knuckle. It was delicate, small and pretty and _perfect,_ and my eyes were watering so badly I had to blink constantly just to see it.

"I promise to love you," Jasper whispered over my hand, holding me tight in both of his one he got the ring settled. "I promise to take care of you, protect you. I'll do anything it takes to put that beautiful smile on your face for good."

"If this is about your job, I think we've got them convinced." I stuttered, gripping his fingers in mine. Jasper finally looked up at me, big blue eyes and wild blonde hair and my heart clenched tightly in my chest.

"Maybe, but I can't think of a better way to show you how much I adore you."

"What happens if one of us meets someone? Someone special?" I asked, not wanting to spoil the moment but unable to ignore the nagging reality of the situation. It was the only part of the conversation neither one of us had broached and the one I was unsure about. I didn't know how long I was going to be living this alternate life and certainly didn't know what it meant for my real one.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I'd like to start paving a road with you. Say yes," he asked, face pinched with want. "Please say yes."

"Yes." I gulped and he beamed at me, his particularly beautiful smile eating up most of his face. "Yes, of course."

He stood, hugging me close. "Can I kiss you?"

"I think that's what married couples do," I choked back a manic-butterfly laugh, holding onto him in case I fainted from pure shock. He pulled his mouth to the side and shook his head at me wistfully.

"I'll always ask."

"Then yes, kiss me."

It was the first of many and I came to understand that kisses from Jasper were a different breed altogether. His weren't restricted in form or feel the way everyone else's seemed so prone to, kisses that could be given their own names. His were all of it, _all the time_. Soft and sweet as a first kiss, excited and enflamed as one somewhere in the middle and there were even hints of aged, wizened love behind his teeth, as though he'd known you for a lifetime already.

The perfect trio, all in one.

* * *

I licked my lips and set them on his.

Jasper responded far more intently than I expected him to, exhaling roughly into me. Gripping me tight and pushing into my mouth with a tongue intent on tasting every square inch. His hands wormed through my hair, picking me nearly off my feet with an arm around my waist.

"Do _you_ want this?" I asked, breathless, spinning, finding my misplaced taste for this man buried somewhere behind my current distractions. The faint hint of how long his particular drug had tormented me burst to life in my mouth and I wanted every bit of him more than I ever had before.

"I do," he nodded, licking his lips with his eyes locked on my mouth and his own flushing at the edges. My head got knocked sideways all over again by a rushing wave of self-made déjà vu, something that felt like a memory but was probably just a dream I came up with. A memory I created suddenly springing across the line into reality, making everything go momentarily fish eyed. I shook my head, unable to understand how he'd changed his mind so drastically. So suddenly.

_Why?_

"Because," he whispered, "you're fucking beautiful. And I've loved you for so long it nearly hurts."

Answering my question before I'd even asked it.

He set me back on my feet but my foot hurt, _bad_, the dull throbbing escalating to a sharp stab of heat. I dropped to my knees in front of him, partially to get the weight off of it and partially because I figured it was best to start somewhere he was familiar with. He watched me in silence as I pried open his pants and pulled everything to the floor, sort of grateful to see that he was already half hard. I hadn't done this in so long that I basically mimicked what I'd watched Alice do to Edward last night. Pulled back my teeth and sunk over his dick, tonguing the underside. Jasper growled and put a hand to my head but didn't pull me away like Edward had done to Alice, only urged me further until I felt him hit the back of my throat.

I pulled back up with my hand wrapped around him and ran my tongue along the ridge around his head, soft skin against my mouth like the heavy velvet feeling of whiskey. Sucked hard on the end and felt all the skin along my back go up in heat. I pulled my mouth off Jasper, lips wet and numb, a fragile string of saliva strung delicately from my mouth to his dick.

Edward's feet were planted in the carpet on either side of my thighs, his calves brushing my arms. I glanced upward; the sloping line of Jasper's abdomen, his chiseled arm and then his hand. Gripping Edward's jaw, their mouths locked.

_Oh lord._

Everything in me stopped. Blood, brain, heart.

_Standstill_.

Jasper's fingers flexed against my scalp and I watched Edward bite at his bottom lip, both of them moaning. I gripped Jasper tight in my hand, Edward's own erection pressing against my neck through all of my hair and my head thrown back against his stomach, watching them kiss.

"Bella," Edward panted, pulling his lips off Jasper and glancing down at me. Jasper was breathing just a hard, staring at Edward with his eyes glazed over and I blinked.

_Oh, right._

I rubbed my fingers up and down Jasper's dick, coating them in the moisture from my mouth and sunk back down over him again. It felt awkward, and hot, and Jasper thrust gently into my mouth, trembling as though he was holding back and digging his fingers into my hair.

Sighing as I sucked up his shaft.

Gasping as I edged my teeth around his head.

Growling against Edward's tongue as I tongued his slit.

"Not on her face," Edward panted, gripping Jasper's arm tightly and Jasper tugged himself free of my mouth. He wrapped his hand around his dick and groaned, rubbing his palm along all the moisture I'd left behind and Edward's hand appeared in front of my face, reaching between Jasper's legs and cupping his balls. I squeezed Jasper's thighs, watching them fumble the last few steps together from mere inches away.

Jasper got there with a groan, low and guttural and still clutching my head in one hand, coating his stomach.

Edward hoisted me to my feet between them, holding me up against him as though he knew my foot wouldn't do the work for me and snaking an arm across my chest, a palm to my pussy and his mouth to my neck. Jasper was breathing raggedly, dick gone partially limp against my thigh as he wiped himself down with his shirt and discarded it. I stared up at him, gripping Edward's tattooed arm with both hands, his hips pressed against my backside, erection nestled between the cheeks of my ass as Jasper licked his lips and put both of his palms to my tits. My mouth gaped open when he pinched my nipples and Edward pushed two fingers between my folds, searching out the sticky arousal I was surprised wasn't dripping down my leg.

Jasper stepped right up against me, capturing Edward's wrist between our stomachs

"Oh god," I mumbled, holding onto Edward as tight as I could and letting my stumbling mouth occupy itself with Jasper's, moaning into him when he bent to kiss me. He pulled at my nipples and squeezed my tits firmly while Edward continued sucking strongly on the beck of my neck, peppering my hairline with nearly painful kisses, fingers pushing into me and his thumb on my clit.

"Let him see it. Come for him." Edward's lips brushed my ear as he whispered into my hair and I convulsed against him, already weakened from an endless number of days spent being thoroughly scorched and tossed off cliff faces. A week-long bender and I was a blundering drunkard, tottering off the edge of a towering curb. You'd think that all the practice, the stumbling falls and less than graceful swan dives, would have taught me something.

But I never learn a goddamn thing.

I misjudged the depth every time and hit the bottom before I remembered to take a breath, suffocating on too much air and not enough.

When I finally pried my eyes open, Jasper was licking his bottom lip, his hands now on my hips and his eyes studying my face as though he'd never seen me before.

"Jasper, care to return her favor?" Edward asked, voice seductively tempting, slipping his fingers from my pussy and holding his hand in front of my face. Jasper nodded without hesitation, chest heaving as he wrapped his mouth around Edward's fingers, sucking off any evidence I'd left behind. He leaned in to kiss me again before he pulled away, snaking his tongue into my mouth with something that tasted like me before parting the curtains and flopping down onto the bed with a groan as Edward set his lips to the back of my neck. I was still coming down off my orgasm and still holding onto Edward's arm for dear life. I was probably covered in a patterned fan of dual bruises all across my shoulders from those lip rings. He put his mouth to my ear again, voice soft enough to bely what he commanded.

"I want you to go sit on him. On his face."

"What?" I stuttered, still shaking almost violently, not sure my legs would work anyway.

"You heard me." He pulled his arm from my chest and lofted me into the air, depositing me on the bed. A swat to my ass had me moving up the mattress, Jasper reaching for me as I neared. He met me palm to palm, our fingers threading, eyes locked as I moved to swing my leg over his shoulders. His skin had browned while we were here, hair lightened, but those eyes were just the same, frosted blue and impossibly deep. He writhed underneath me, rubbing his cheeks against my knees.

"Face me." Edward spoke from the foot of the bed and I glanced over my shoulder at him. He twirled his finger in the air, indicating that he wanted me to spin, his other hand wrapped firmly around his dick. I licked my lips and tried to remember how to breathe as I did as I was told, Jasper bending his knees to help me steady myself. I rested my hands on his kneecaps, poised above him as he put both hands on my ass and dug his toes into the sheets.

"Tell him. Tell him what to do." Edward provoked me, still rubbing.

"Start slow," I practically whimpered, watching him fondle the swollen head and then slide clear down to that barbell, torturously slow with a near grimace on his face.

"Kiss her. Only what you can see," Edward finished harshly.

Jasper's grip on my thighs clenched and I felt his lips press against my pubic bone. Again, lower, a soft kiss over the top of my slit. Another and another and another, kisses planted all over me and I dug my fingers into his knees, already starting to tremble. Edward rolled his tongue over his lip rings, pressing up against the inside like a secret message, watching my face intently.

"The very tip of your tongue, Jasper . . . taste her with it. Lick her," he charged, swallowing roughly as my mouth dropped open, the barest hint of Jasper's tongue dancing along my slit.

"Now spread her open." Edward demanded and I felt Jasper's fingers feather up my thighs, finally pulling me apart, his heavy exhale billowing across my skin.

"God, Bella," Jasper sighed, the sound fading away and my eyes nearly watering as he pressed his tongue up against me. I dropped my chin to my chest, eyes locked on his cock, hard against his belly, darkened with what would appear to be arousal.

"Yeah," Edward scoffed, nodding in agreement, pulling his hand roughly up his dick. "It's pretty, isn't it? I trust you know enough to find her clit. Suck on it."

Jasper drug his mouth against me, lips circling every nerve ending that has ever existed, all of them tethered to the base of my spine and pulled my clit into his mouth. I scrunched my eyes closed, unleashing my fingernails on the skin stretched thin across his kneecaps as my trembling got worse. Edward's voice managed to get through the sound of my manic breathing.

"Yeah. Like that, only harder," he nearly barked. "Dig your nose in there, she tastes so fucking good."

Jasper moaned into me and did as he was told, wrapping his hands around my hips and sucking hard. I panted in response, blood boiling and brain on fire.

Skin tingling under the watchful eyes of Edward.

He licked his lips again, toying with the head of his dick as he watched nothing but my face. I planted my hands firmer and arched my back, pushing myself onto Jasper's face with a moan, still staring all my wild hair trailing across his stomach. Whispering across his swollen dick.

"Harder," Edward panted.

Jasper's hand slapped my ass cheek hard enough to bruise.

Biting into my skin with his palm and he groaned into me, clutching my hips tightly to his face.

"Ahhh!" I forced the air out of my chest as I clenched around his tongue, his nose pressed firmly against my ass and his stubble biting into my clit. Edward sheathed himself with a condom and crawled onto the bed, stopping between Jasper's thighs and leaning over his hips.

He licked the inside of my lips, capturing every last exhale of my orgasm beneath his tongue.

"Up." His fingers skittered down my entire front, from my chin to my pubic bone, digging into it gently but insistent. I hoisted myself onto my knees, lifting off Jasper as Edward slunk his fingers through my folds, nearly cupping me with his whole hand. Jasper moaned and bit my thigh, obviously watching Edward tease me and when he finally pulled away, his hand was nearly dripping.

"So wet, Bella." He smiled wickedly and pulled me toward him, off Jasper and into his lap. He pressed my back up against his chest and I squirmed in his lap, wet skin meeting his erection. Jasper was panting, wiping his face with his hands and Edward was spreading my knees by pushing his own apart.

"You can have both of us, if you want," he whispered, mouth to the back of my neck and a palm to my breast. "If you're ready."

_Holy. Mother. Fuck._ I nodded like a toddler who'd just been offered free reign in a candy store. Giddy and needy and a little terrified that I wouldn't be able to control myself.

"Jasper, this beautiful woman is your wife." Edward dipped his fingers into the creases of my thighs, inching his knees even wider and massaging me firmly. He sounded as though he was introducing us, his dick twitching against my ass. "I want you to fuck her. Properly."

Jasper's eyes met mine and he licked his lips again, fingering his dick and nodding almost as enthusiastically as I'd done a moment before.

Edward held a condom up in front of me. "Put it on him."

I was still trembling, but I managed to roll the condom on, Jasper groaning under my fingers. He really did have a beautiful dick, long and straight and the perfect. He sat up as I finished and pulled me into his lap, letting me sink slow and soft and patiently down onto him, savoring every moment of it and trying to burn it all into my memory.

"Jesus Christ," he panted, clutching my ribs as our bones met. I could feel the quaking spasm that rolled across him, undulating like one of those monster waves way out in the middle of the ocean, sending my insides hurtling down the sheer-faced side of it. Jasper flopped back against the mattress, his hands pulling me along and I hovered over him, our faces hidden in a veil of my hair. He dig his fingers into my hips, pushing me to my knees and thrusting his hips off the bed once I gave him the room.

"Shit," he ground out, low and in the back of his throat, craning his neck to plant his lips to my collarbone, pulling out to press back in a little harder.

_You could say that again._

I could feel Edward behind me, his thighs brushing the backs of my own and his mouth tracing my spine. A blistering kiss to every knob of my vertebra, soft and wet right that at the crack of my ass as his fingers slipped down over my cheeks, spreading me open. His breathing picked up as he watched Jasper push into me, the pads of his fingers tracing all around the sensitive skin that was stretched around Jasper, searching momentarily for my clit and then dragging a slick of moisture up over my ass before setting his mouth down around me. Tongue skirting just shy of intrusion.

I sucked in a rushing gasp of air, blistering hot as though we were in the middle of an inferno, a stinging caustic mix that scorched my lungs.

Jasper pulled my ear into his mouth the same moment Edward pushed a finger into my ass, way too fast and not nearly fast enough. Slippery and shell shocked and my knees trembled as he added another finger, Jasper still sinking himself slow and deep. It was all so overwhelming. Every one of the fragile seams holding me together was straining under the effort and I was certain I hadn't used the right kind of thread when I did my repairs. That what I'd sewn myself up with wasn't strong enough to stand the pressure and should have been wax-coated or re-enforced with steel.

The first thread started to fray the moment Edward deemed me ready.

"Motherfuck," he murmured, pulling his fingers free and replacing them with his dick, the condom slick as he sunk himself slowly into me and jesus fucking _god_, I unravelled like a spool of thread tossed down a never-ending staircase.

Tumbling head over feet, end over end, glimpses of sky and earth and then sky again in a dizzying plummet over the edge.

"Oh fuck. Edward, I - I can - _feel_ you," Jasper stuttered, thrusting into me as Edward pulled out and I knew exactly what he was talking about. The thin expanse of skin between them did basically nothing to separate and even I could practically feel them rubbing against one another. I moaned, dropping my chest to Jasper's and breathing hard into his neck. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, holding me close as Edward pulled himself nearly free and timed his reentry with Jasper's.

Giving and taking in unison.

"God, _fuck_ yes. Just like that." Edward growled into the air and I couldn't do anything but register the very basics.

Two pairs of hands finger-tipping along my skin.

The frantic rise and fall of Jasper's chest beneath me and the steady urgent contact of Edward's thighs against mine. Their timing thrown off so that one was pushing in while the other was pulling out and I couldn't tell which. The way my blood went thermonuclear and my bones turned to dust.

"_Goddamnit,_ Bella," Edward choked, going rigid and tense as his cock pulsed and he dug his fingers into Jasper's freshly planted bruise on my ass cheek. He plowed into me twice more, hard and fast before pulling slowly away and tugging off the condom, muttering under his breath about a lack of self control and dropping to his hands behind me.

Jasper captured my mouth with his, growling between my lips as he ground himself as hard against me as he could, Edward's stubbled chin to his balls, mouth set strong around my ass. Metal and flesh and I collapsed on top of Jasper, my legs finally giving way as they pulled another orgasm from me.

My parachute barely had time to open before I hit the ground.

* * *

I stood on the tarmac the next morning, watching our luggage being loaded into the plane, blown over with my last indulgence of that delicious, wicked lavender off the water. Esme and Carlisle arrived, Esme trotting over to stand beside me and looping an arm through mine.

"I'm so glad we're flying together. Carlisle has a tendency to snore through most of the flight unless someone keeps him occupied. We'll just let Jasper and Emmett do that."

"Where is Alice?" I asked, unwilling to even mention Edward's name for fear my voice would give me away. Jasper had carried me back to our villa last night, a last fleeting kiss from Edward before sleep overcame me and I was so anxious and _so_ nervous to see him.

"They left this morning. Their connecting flight leaves New York in the morning so they had to get an early start."

"New _York_?" I spluttered.

"They're flying back to Africa. Didn't they tell you?"

_**NO**_. They did not.

* * *

Go ahead: throw your stones.

**- I've got my helmet on -**

And, I've decided not to be a complete jerk, so . . . . 30 will upload in t-minus 24 hours.


	30. Chapter 30

**Thirty**

I hope he fits the tux / even mountains are in flux

My Murder, My Love - The Coup

* * *

The night of the Mirabell dinner, my foot was on _fire_.

Burning from somewhere deep in very the center and feeling as awkwardly attached to my body as the rest of me was. We'd been back nearly two weeks and the stitches had already dissolved away but I'd spent every second of every last _never-ending_ moment far too focused on my foot, or my mouth, or my heart and all the different ways those three things could ache.

It was astounding, really, the variety.

Rose had outdone herself. Which said a lot because the girl regularly amazed the shit out of me and she'd just done it again. The dress fit me perfectly, a golden, shimmery fabric that made me feel like a statue on some actor's mantle and glittered frantically every time I moved. She wasn't happy about the fact that I still couldn't wear anything beyond a mid-sized heel and made me stand on a stool for nearly an hour while she hemmed the bottom so that it wouldn't drag. She sat on her knees, forehead furrowed in concentration, mouth full of pins, which was good because I needed some time to _think_.

Two days ago, I found Jacob waiting on our doorstep.

It was also the day I found Edward's note, folded up small and tucked into a pocket of my suitcase. A simple "I'm Sorry" missive in a slanted scrawl that made me wish I'd never found it at all and left me feeling wrung out and listless.

I parked the car and peered at Jacob, taking a moment to place his face and blanching when I finally did. He stood as I approached, hands in his pockets and eyes on his feet. He'd shorn his hair off, chopped cleanly to his neck and only just long enough to tie back, which seemed a little drastic considering the beautiful length of it before.

"Jacob? Are you ok?"

"I think so. Mostly." He shrugged and I noticed the knapsack on the step near his feet.

"Should I ask what you're doing here?"

I knew before he even looked up at me, soberingly doe-eyed, pushing his vulnerable side right out into the open between us. I knew before his lip trembled and he opened his mouth.

That haircut said it all.

"I can't stop it," he stuttered. "I tried, but I just can't."

I sighed, a hand to his elbow and gulping down something that tasted like the faint traces of destruction. "Come inside."

* * *

Nine thirty that evening found me chin deep in a mob of slightly drunken partygoers, trying desperately to escape which is a much harder feat than normal when you're wearing a gold dress. I was stopped nearly every few steps by yet another person who wanted to congratulate me on our success with Lawson Park, or the updated playground equipment at Dorset. I was tired and hungry and I hadn't seen Jasper in so long I was beginning to wonder if he really had come with me or if I'd just conjured up the car ride and the conversation we had there.

_Don't think about that car ride. Not now. _

This year the dinner was being hosted at the sprawling mansion of some bigwig in architecture, a balding man with a wife twice his size and a bank account big enough for a hundred people. The house was enormous, lavishly decorated, too ornate for my tastes and reminded me of a museum. I eventually found an empty hallway and darted down it, trying four doors before I found one that was unlocked. I ended up on the small patio that beckoned from the french doors of what looked to be a library, for all I could see in the dark. The room was on the opposite side of the mansion from the party and it was actually sort of peaceful out here, the full moon blanching everything in silver. The softest strains of music were cartwheeling across the lawn, dancing with the random flashing of lightning bugs and I wrapped my arms around myself, still trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.

Jacob was in love with Jasper.

Fully and completely. So thoroughly ensnared that it was almost hard to watch. Jasper hadn't seemed surprised, neither by Jacob's appearance or his nearly tearful confession. It was almost as though he knew. As though he felt the same. Neither of them spoke the words out loud, but this was that moment, I was sure of it. Something underneath my feet was drifting, a tectonic shift of events that I had no control over, strong enough to suck me under. I'd known it was coming but had been doing everything in my power to ignore it. _Denial_. It typically works wonders but tonight the air tasted different and I was missing that lavender buzz I'd worn so easily last week. I'd tried to imagine my life without Jasper before this but the seemingly implausible occurrence was now a sobering reality and I wondered what was going to happen to me when this was all over.

I wrapped my arms around myself and watched the lightning bugs dart haphazardly across the lawn in heartbroken silence until someone ambled around the corner of the house, trudging through the grass.

_Edward_.

Still looking out of place in his fancy clothes, a simple tux that hid too much of his ink and not enough of his tormented demeanor. He stopped short when he saw me, eyes widening.

"You're _here_," I stuttered.

"You're glowing." He sounded just as shocked as I was. It was probably the dress.

"Why are you here?" I tried again, unable to wrap my head around anything even remotely resembling logic until he offered an answer.

"My mother asked me to escort her. I couldn't say no." His hair was neatly slicked back, jaw cleanly shaven and I was in so much trouble. He was staring at me hard enough to resurrect that filigree tattoo of his across my skin, the one that I was sure had been in the final throes of a slow death. I hadn't felt it in days.

It burst back to life like a wildfire, licking hungrily at every arid inch of my skin.

"I thought you went to Africa." I kept my eyes off his, locking them on the light piece of fabric tucked into his breast pocket instead.

"I did, but I couldn't stay. Are you disappointed?"

I had no answer for him, brain deprived of oxygen because my lungs were refusing to do any sort of manual labor. Wanting to say yes. _No_. Unable to move or breath. Foot on fire, skin scorching, mouth full of flames.

Just burning away to nothing, really.

"Where is Alice?" The tremble in my voice was totally apparent.

"Still there." He glanced away, eyes shifting off into the distance.

"You _left_ her?" I was instantly terrified, even if I was a little heartbroken by her. Imagining for a moment what the claw of a lion could do to the skin of a girl. What a rogue virus could do to a blood cell.

He tucked his chin, voice suddenly edging in frustration. "She's happy there. I'm not."

"So you flew there, turned around, and flew right back?" _The jet lag must be killer._

He ignored me. "How's your foot?"

"Terrible. It hurts," I answered honestly, secretly alluding to the state of my heart and my mouth too. My skin, torched beyond recognition.

"You shouldn't be wearing shoes like that," he admonished,

"I couldn't get out of this. I tried, believe me."

Edward chuckled almost harshly and opened his mouth to say something but the sharp echo of a microphone screeching through an amplifier pierced the air, making me jump a little. A familiar voice wafted across the lawn, Esme heralding the beginning of the customary speeches. Edward stepped up onto the patio, closing the space between us and I could hardly bear it. Missing the days when I jumped right over the edge, floundering for a future that didn't exist in the patterns he burned into my skin. Unable to decide between flinging myself into his arms or running away.

My aching foot kept me pinned to my spot.

Edward stooped and plucked me off my feet, my glittery dress tumbling nearly to his knees as he held me to his chest. Still sporting his five o'clock shadow and that lion-like hair. Still striking me senseless. Still only half real.

"This feels like a dream," I exhaled without meaning to and he shot me a cynical look, eyebrows tucked low.

"As long as it's not a nightmare."

I hung onto his jacket and let him carry me back through the house, wondering what he might have meant by that. He smelled so good, exactly like I remembered, butter and salt and sex and looked downright exhausted. He'd changed his piercings, swapping the silver hoops for ones that were ebony black and he held his face away from mine, a bit of his dandelions peeking at me from his shirt collar.

I was almost certain he wasn't breathing at all.

He stopped just outside the entrance to the great room, the pulse in his neck beating heavily and I clung to his shoulders, too dizzy to think straight. He set me back on my feet, gentle and patient until I'd gotten my balance before straightening, tucking his hands into his pockets and his lip rings into his mouth.

Esme was standing on the stage that was erected in front of a towering wall of windows, hair gone blisteringly blonde under all the bright lights and she was smiling as she waited for everyone to seat themselves. I hobbled through the room, finding Jasper with Emmett and Carlisle seated alongside a couple of people I should probably know. I expected Edward to give me a ten-second start and then seat himself next to his father, but he didn't.

A cautious glance over my shoulder found him still shadowed in the entrance.

Esme cleared her throat again and I downed half of my champagne.

"On behalf of the Mirabell Foundation, I'd like to thank all of our benefactors, many of whom are present tonight. Without your generous support our team would not have been able to overhaul Lawson Park, turning a neglected acre of land into a thriving playground. We certainly would not have been able to support the community garden that was erected this spring at Buckley Park and the new The Boys And Girls Club facility would be nothing but a dream. Every effort we have made has been because of your support and we are so thankful to each and every one of you."

The audience clapped politely, lots of smiles and _atta-boys. _

"I'd like to introduce a man who is quite dear to me for _other_ reasons, but this year pledged more resources toward our mission than nearly all of our other funding combined. He has shown fierce loyalty and dedication, not just to _me_," she pressed a hand to her heart and beamed dreamily, "but to so many others as well. I'm proud to present my husband, Carlisle Cullen."

The roar of applause was deafening. I was half tempted to slap my hands over my ears but restrained and made myself clap timidly along instead. Carlisle stood and made his way briskly to the stage, ignoring the crowd to capture Esme for a hug and a rather indecent kiss, considering their audience. He took the microphone from her and sent her on her way and only by the time she'd made it back to our table, the room quieted.

"She sure knows how to give a man an introduction," Carlisle chuckled into the mike and everyone laughed along. "Most of you know me, but I'm going to bore you for a moment, for those of you that don't. My name is Carlisle, named for some long lost relative that I have hated every day of my life." The crowd chuckled. "When I was twenty, two very important things happened to me. I bought a small company that was close to failing, and I met a girl."

He winked at Esme from clear across the crowded ballroom as though they were the only two people there.

"That was a long time ago and most of you have come to know me in more recent, prosperous times. That little gamble of mine paid off, both company and girl, and here I am today, wealthier that I ever dreamed simply because that woman over there asked me to marry her."

"It's true, it's true!" Carlisle laughed into the mike over the buzz of the crowd.

I nudged Esme, enjoying her blush and she waved Carlisle off teasingly, half hating and half enjoying the attention.

"However, I can't even take the credit for the latest of my business success. My company spent years stagnating in an obviously growing market. We were maintaining, at least by my book keeper's standard, but our profits hadn't increased for nearly four years and I was at a loss as to what the problem might be."

Carlisle swapped the microphone to his other hand and ambled across the stage.

Nonchalant.

"Five years ago, I hired a new employee. He was recommended to me by a dear friend and business partner, someone I've known since childhood, a man who has _never_ done such a thing before in the all years we've been working together. Marcus? Where are you?"

The room erupted in a light buzz as an elderly man stood on the far side of the room unfolded himself to his feet, the buzz boiling into a healthy round of clapping again. My palms were starting to sting and it was only when I really got a good look at the man did I recognize him. He was the one who had taken such an interest in Jasper at the very beginning, tapping him for glory and I couldn't help but think about those first few awkward times we'd played like we were in love for someone else's benefit. Steak dinners and wine and Marcus' grandfatherly compliments that still made me blush. His skin was pallid and sepia toned around the edges, eyes sunken in and bones pushing up from underneath, looking so much older than I remembered.

Aging over a century in a fraction of that time.

"Marcus, my dear old friend, come up here." Carlisle teased, smiling broadly and even I laughed out loud when the old man flipped Carlisle the bird in response. He made his way gingerly through the tables, taking Carlisle's offered hand to help himself onto the stage and giving him a solid hug once he was safely there. The room fell quiet as Carlisle pulled the microphone back to his mouth, arm around Marcus' shoulders.

"What most of you don't know about Marcus is that he's dying." Carlisle continued doggedly on despite the collective gasp from the crowd and an eyeroll from Marcus. Apparently he was used to this version of Carlisle, the spokesperson. "We've known for some time now, nearly five years but as you can tell, the end is drawing near. When he told me about his diagnosis, he asked me to do two things for him. Keep his secret," Carlisle extended his index finger, then a second, "and give an interview. Simple enough, the least I could do for an old friend. But I'm no stranger to business, I've learned to keep my expectations low, especially when it comes to employees. They tend to lead to disappointment."

The whole room laughed again, but I missed the point of that particular joke,

"Marcus, however, sees things that are buried far below the surface. Looking back on it now, I know now that he saw something of himself in this certain young person and in the spirit of paying it forward, sought to launch them in way that he could have never had for himself. Many of you know this young man, most of you have worked with him and almost every last one of you has been impressed by him in some way or another. _Three_ of you have threatened to steal him from right underneath my nose. You know who you are."

Carlisle tossed an accusing stare out over the crowd, getting another gentle wave of laughter out of the room.

"But what you _don't_ know about this particular young man is what makes him incredible. He has become as close to me as a son. I have found myself becoming very attached, almost dependent on him in a way, but my rather inappropriate feelings aren't the only thing you don't know about him."

Oh god. _He was doing it._

Now.

_Now?_

I reached for Jasper, clutching his hand tight and trying my best not to scream his name out loud, forcing it out as a ragged whisper. "_Jasper_."

He glanced at me, looking a little ashen but determined. He took in my fearful face and his eyes widened briefly before his mouth cocked to the side in a sad sort of smile.

"I'm sorry, I meant to tell you, but . . . you sort of blindsided me in the car . . ." He waved his hand lightly through the air, indicating the conversation I was still trying really hard not to think about. "If you'd like to leave, you should go now. Edward is here."

"You saw him?"

"I asked him to be here." Jasper blinked at me solemnly, clutching my hand and trembling deep down in between the bones of his own.

_I couldn't leave._

Not when his face paled like that. Not when he was gripping my hand as tightly as I was gripping his and certainly not when he looked so uncertain. I'd never seen him like this, without all his usual security. He'd come home late tonight, barely making it in time to ride with me and I wondered if he and Carlisle had talked about this before he left that towering skyscraper.

If it had been planned.

"This young man, the same one who picked my company up by the belt loops and put it back on its feet, has been carrying a secret with him the entire time he's been with us. A secret that he felt he couldn't share, if only to break into our world and he has been quietly denying his choices in order to work beside us. A secret that he shares with our friend Marcus, here."

Carlisle put a hand reassuringly on Marcus' shoulder and nearly glared at the crowd.

"This is wrong. Wrong because I _know_ all of you. I know that underneath the business veneer you truly are good, understanding people. Your prejudices do not determine you. Your judgements do not speak fully of your character and tonight, I ask that you set those aside. I ask that you open your mind and your heart and accept that our world is changing."

He met my eyes across the sea of people with an apologetic shake of his head.

"That being said, I'd like to officially welcome the first gay man that my company, _and yours_, has ever seen before and the second to have touched me deeper than this entire room combined." Carlisle spoke mostly to Marcus for a moment, the two of them exchanging a look that spoke eons worth of trust and loyalty before he turned back on the crowd.

"Jasper Hale."

Carlisle stretched an arm out toward us, motioning across the room of people and Marcus began clapping loudly, the room joining in with a stuttered response that quickly escalated as Jasper pressed his lips softly to the side of my palm. He released my fingers and stood, straightening his jacket, suddenly composed and collected as though he'd been practicing this moment and I wondered if he really had been.

Esme was staring at me.

They were _all_ staring at me and I was like a goddamn neon sign in my gold dress and my bright red blush. I'd been so concerned about what they would think of Jasper that I hadn't bothered to stop and ponder over what they might think of me. Their faces were either soft or hard, pity or resentment with no grey area in between.

By the time he reached the stage, the applause was thunderous.

I met Edward's eyes from clear across the room and his eyebrow arched as he tipped his head ever so slightly toward the front of the house. The circular driveway and the big gate near the road that looked more like the entrance to a tomb than a house. The highway and all the space I could put between me and what was happening right now.

I stood, not quite sure what I planned on doing. Half the room was watching me, half watching Jasper make his way through the tables, pausing once or twice along the way to shake an offered hand. The pain in my foot suddenly flared, nearly unbearable, and Edward was beside me the moment I faltered.

His hand on my hip and his mouth in my face.

"Come on. Let's get the fuck out of here."

* * *

**reviews = love**

**Without Hadley Hemingway - I would be a disaster.**


	31. Chapter 31

**Thirty One**

* * *

There was a box on my doormat when we pulled up.

Unassuming and so _normal_ in brown paper wrapping that I almost forgot how fucked up everything had gotten the moment I spotted it. Edward had looked distracting enough that it kept my mind off reality for most of the drive, all sorts of out of place behind the wheel of Esme's silver Volvo. He'd picked me up in the middle of that crowded room and stormed out without a backward glance, depositing me in the front seat of a car I'd seen before and smelled too familiar to ignore.

"Why are we in your mother's car?" I tore my eyes off the misleading box as I undid my seatbelt.

He glanced at me as he threw the car into park and killed the engine. "Because I don't have one."

"You don't?" My question went unanswered until Edward had uncurled himself from the car and appeared at my door, helping me to stand in my trailing dress and aching foot, my abandoned heels dangling from his fingertips.

"What would I do with a car?" He asked with a chuckle, "I rode a bicycle in Africa."

He helped me to the door while I imagined him wheeling down a rutted dusty road somewhere too far away for me to fathom. I handed him my house keys and stooped to pick the box up, nearly half of the top covered with a colorful collage of stamps.

"I _knew_ it would make it here before me," he grumbled, unlocking the door.

"What is it?" I clutched the box to my stomach, already excited.

"You asked me to get you something. Something '_pretty_' if I remember correctly." Edward pushed the door open and I limped inside, fluttery with anticipation. He dropped my shoes in the hallway and leaned up against the back of the couch, watching as I fell to my knees and opened the box on the coffee table.

It was a tea pot, nestled in a cascade of white tissue paper. Cast of metal, enameled a shiny bright blue and etched with a delicate golden pattern around every voluptuous curve. The spout of the teapot curled dramatically and the lid was topped with a golden ball the size of an almond.

"Edward," I exhaled, not really knowing what I had expected him to send, but certainly not this and I secretly loved how he always seemed to exceed my mediocre standards. The metal was cool to the touch, the lid secured with a metal hinge and the inside was black as night.

"Tea is something you can't escape over there. It's like a handshake." He smiled sheepishly, looking almost as though he'd expected me to hate it.

"I don't know if I have any," I nearly pouted, wanting so badly to put this beautiful present to work. Edward seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when he produced a plastic bag from his pocket as though he was only waiting for the right moment to give it to me.

As if he had known this was going to happen, and came prepared.

According to Jasper, he _had_.

"Jasper said he called you," I accused. Edward nodded, confirming my suspicions and I scowled at him. "I thought you said your mother asked you to escort her."

"She did. His call was only a formality."

"How long have you been back?"

"Two days," he sighed.

Part of me wondered if I was the only person who hadn't known what was going to happen tonight. I stared at the pretty tea pot in my lap, feeling so far flung that this simple metal object from half way around the world was suddenly the only thing I could understand. Its gilded etchings matched my dress and the blue was the exact same color as all my insides and I clutched it tight in case I accidentally burst into tears, or threw it against the wall. When I glanced up at Edward, his lips rings were tucked out of sight and his arms were crossed over his chest. His eyes darted all over me as though he could see all the marks he'd left, invisible to everyone but us.

"What are you thinking?" I asked him so that he wouldn't ask me first.

"That I'd like to peel you out of that dress. But let's make tea first," he said with a tortured smile, picking up the set and heading toward the kitchen, glancing back at me just before he disappeared. "Don't change."

* * *

We ended up in my greenhouse, set up at the little white wrought iron patio set Jasper had put near the peonies as though we really were having a tea party. Playing pretend in our dress-up clothes. It was so out of place, him, _here_, that I was sure I'd gotten up out of bed in a dead sleep and fallen face-first down a rabbit hole. Edward boiled a full kettle of water before collecting a couple of shot glasses, the sugar bowl and a spoon, all of it now clustered on the little table between us. I lit a couple of candles as much for light as for the bug repellant and sat in one of the chairs watching him intently, his forehead furrowed as he concentrated on setting everything up in front of him.

Ritualistic and thoughtful. Determined and precise.

"This looks important," I mused as he dumped a palmful of tea leaves into the bottom of the metal tea pot and filled it with boiling water, candle light sparkling against his lip rings. His hair looked longer, sun bleached against his skin.

"It is. The ceremony is almost more important than actually _drinking_ it." He winked at me and filled one of the shot glasses nearly to the top with sugar, adding it to the tea pot and stirring the contents before closing the lid.

"Now what?" I asked, thoroughly intrigued.

"Now, we wait." He leaned back against his chair, eyeing his surroundings. He'd discarded his jacket and then his tie, looking far more comfortable without them, sleeves of his shirt rolled up and buttons undone. Gone mostly monochrome in the remnants of his suit except for all that familiar ink, arms as colorful as anything around us.

Dandelions peeking from his collar.

"It's nice in here," he mused, tonguing his lip rings and fingering a soft leaf of sage from the big purple pot by his knee. "Did you do all of this?"

I glanced around, at the swing dangling from the ceiling just a few feet away, a carpet of clover beneath it. Violets in full bloom up against the lamb's ear. Snowberry and witch hazel. Yellow crowned yarrow and my newest edition, a plant that had taken surprisingly well to its surrounding and made my head hurt every time I was near it, much less my heart. Lavender, the Spanish variety, clustered into tight purple buds with showy paper petals bursting from their crowns. Silvery leaves and long slender stems, potently sweet and steeped in far too much memory.

"I guess I can see now why everyone was so worked up about the greenhouse. He really _did_ buy it for you." Edward mused, staring right at that lavender plant like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

I gulped. Painful and searing as though I'd rolled my gum around in powdered glass and tried to swallow it whole. I couldn't bear the thought of parting with this place. I loved it here, every plant hand picked and I'd talked to all of them, poured the gravel pathways myself and spent hours lying in the patches of clover. Sitting underneath the rather sad looking pear tree. It just wouldn't flourish, no matter how much water or time or whispered words of encouragement I gave it.

I was trying not to think of that tree as a metaphor for my marriage, but my mouth obviously doesn't give a fuck about my self preservation.

"I'm divorcing him," I spilled.

"You're what?" Edward stared at me as though I'd just declared my intentions to grown a horn in the middle of my forehead. Wary and curious and full of disbelief.

"Getting a divorce," I repeated in a near whisper. "I want it. He wants it."

It felt so awkward to say out loud, just as awkward as when I admitted to Alice that Jasper was gay, giving the words a brief physicality that rendered them undeniably real. I'd barely had time to adjust to it myself, the conversation with Jasper in the car had changed everything and I was torn between bone throbbing sadness and downright fucking enthusiasm.

I watched Edward, waiting for a response but he only sucked those black lip rings into his mouth, tonguing the bell that was inked there between them and wrapped his hand around the handle of the teapot in silence. He tipped the spout close to the lip of the shot glass, a stream of dark liquid hitting the bottom and as it filled he pulled the teapot high into the air, a long thin stream of tea hitting the glass and frothing to a bubbly crown at the top. He ended with a flourish and filled the second glass the same way, close and then far away, so that each was topped with a foamy inch of aromatic tea.

"The first round is always the best." He glanced at me as he pushed a steaming shot glass across the table, his mouth curling suggestively to the side. "Strong and sweet and wickedly hot."

He was talking about tea.

_Right?_

I watched him toss the shot back, slurping noisily, wincing as he nearly slammed his shot glass back onto the table with a hiss. Looking as though he'd just taken a shot of fiery resignation.

"I'm sure that your mother wouldn't approve of that method. I think she taught you better manners," I teased him, the glass already burning my fingers. Edward grinned and crossed his elbows on the table.

"You _have_ to slurp. It's considered rude if you don't and otherwise, you'll burn your tongue right off."

He was right. The tea was roughly the same temperature as a molten meteorite and taking it with a healthy gulp of air was the only thing that made the heat somewhat tolerable. It was so strong and so sweet that I felt jittery and high strung the instant it hit my stomach. The next round was a little weaker, by heat and sweet standards. The last even more so, much like the tea I was used to drinking by the mugful.

Edward measured another palmful of tea, glass full of sugar, pot full of water; prepping another round. His hair was falling into his face and his shirt was starting to wilt in the damp air of the greenhouse, my own curls beginning to compact into ringlets and if I squinted my eyes hard enough I could almost imagine we were on some island in the middle of the big, gigantic sea.

"Did you know that Carlisle was planning to out Jasper tonight?" I asked as he stood, fishing in his pocket and producing a pack of cigarettes. They were a different brand than the ones he smoked before, the pack the wrong color, but the sight of it in his hands made my head spin.

"Yes," he paused, striding a few solid paces away and tucking a cigarette between his lips instead, a flare of flame lighting up his face. He stopped near the swing, eyeing it as he let out a mouthful of smoke. "Letting you walk into that room was the hardest thing I've ever done." He hollowed out his cheeks to take another deep drag, the stick hidden in his hand, burning end dangerously close to his palm and smoke curling between his fingers. Before I could ask him why he would let me do it, allow me to walk blindly into a battle I had no idea was about to be waged, he continued.

"He did it because of me."

"You? But, _why_?"

Edward visibly shuddered.

"Because I broke," he thundered, rough and forced out underneath his tongue. "Because I called him from Niamey and I told him everything. Alice and the baby. You and that _fucking_ island. Jasper. Jacob. All of it."

_Oh god._ "Why would you do that?"

Edward took another angry looking drag off that cigarette and almost glared at me, words of smoke that disappeared into the air around his face. "_You_. I can't even remember how to breathe. How to sleep . . . I've been awake for days and I can't decide if I should stay away from you, or not. Part of me wants to hate you for it."

"You hate me?" I struggled to keep my face straight, digging my fingernails into my palms and hoping the pain would force my face to stay composed.

He snorted derisively. "I want to climb inside your smile."

_What was that supposed to mean? _"Is this what you wanted? From the very beginning?"

"No," he shook his head, pausing forever to chew on his lip rings. "I wanted to fuck you. Then I got greedy and wanted you to love me."

So fucking blunt. And truthful.

And _him_.

"What do you want now?" I floundered and Edward nearly burned a hole right through me with those laser-beam eyes.

"I'm still hoping for that."

* * *

**AN:**

Sorry I made you wait so long. Actually, I'm not.

I'm also not sorry that I didn't respond to any reviews for the last two chapters. I had to fix all the cracks in my helmet, which took me all night and most of my glue sticks. Those things aren't cheap.

**Hadley Hemingway is the flower to my honeybee.** I owe her like eight grand in therapy bills. There's a donation box by the door.

(Even when you're mad at me) **reviews** (still) **= love**.


	32. Chapter 32

**Thirty Two**

* * *

**Warning**: delicate subject matter ahead / references to PTSD and self abuse:

* * *

Almost the entire ride to the Mirabell dinner, I thought about Edward's dandelions.

Thought about _them_ rather than the rest of him. Rather than his collarbones or his piano keys or the way he slept, hard and deep and stone still. Rather than his lip rings. _Rather than that damn bell._ Even though I knew the true connotations behind the flowers, I allowed myself to make new ones. By now I was fairly certain that the tattoo had nothing to do with space or time.

Nothing to do with life or death.

It was _me_. Found wrapped up tight against the sun and then willed to life. _Ignited_, except lately, I'd been wandering around like that last ghostly orb just before a heavy wind. Trembling with the effort of holding myself together. Poised on the precarious edge of disintegration and certain that it was a kid nearly a decade younger than me who was going to be my undoing.

Jacob.

So new and soft and ripe with possibility that he was almost unbearably vulnerable, willingly flinging himself into the unknown for _love_. Leaving everything he knew to show up on at our doorstep. He was either crazy or _so_ much braver than me, and I still hadn't decided which.

Jasper was staring out the window of the town car as we hurtled toward the party I had no desire to attend _at all_, peering off into the distance, his fingers curled through mine. Rose had suited him to match me without drawing too much attention from the ridiculous dress I was laced into. His suit was dark charcoal, shirt a silvery white and he was once again in those honey-colored shoes, the lightest shades edging nearly up to the gold of my dress. Gold silk at his breast pocket, his wedding band the same color.

I was sure he was thinking about Jacob.

About the tearful confession the boy made from his knees just before we left tonight, even though we were already running late. Reaching for hair that wasn't there anymore and fumbling with his hands when they had nothing to do. It had been heartbreaking to witness, I was sure even more so for the two people involved and I'd felt like I was intruding on a moment that should have been sweet and soft and just for them. Instead, it had turned into a pleading ultimatum with ragged, tear stained edges and someone had to make a choice.

I tightened my grip on Jasper and took a deep gulping breath before I blew.

"Jasper." He turned his face to look at me, eyes heavy and forehead furrowed. The strain was beginning to show, every one of Jacob's feelings echoed there before being forced away and I bit my lip roughly, trying to keep my eyes from prickling. I knew him better than I knew myself, how he liked his coffee and the fact that he always drank from my cup instead. The way he rolled over in his sleep and how he could drain a beer in two solid gulps. His deep set eyes and painfully familiar smell.

The bruise he'd left on my ass two weeks ago had just finally faded away, along with those stitches.

"It's time."

_Poof_.

* * *

Edward was staring at my hands.

I tucked my wedding ring away, hiding my fingers in my lap and he swallowed roughly before opening his mouth.

"Have you slept with him? Since then?"

_Oh, flashes. _

Of skin and sand and sheets.

Lavender and ink, diamonds and teeth, and I dug my own into my lip as I shook my head.

Jasper and I had waltzed seamlessly into our old life. Reassumed our roles as though nothing had happened, skirting the obvious until Jacob showed up. He kissed me a little harder, looked at me a little longer, asking me silent questions that I declined to answer and would have given me anything I wanted, but I couldn't bring myself to ask. I was too enamored with my heartbeat to listen to anything else, certain that it had changed drastically over the last two weeks. I felt listless and lightheaded all the time as the frantic skittering was slowly replaced by something low and laborious.

Exhausting and strained.

A constant metronome beat, over and over and over.

_Edward. Edward. Edward. Edward._

"Why not?" He furrowed his eyebrows, looking so perplexed that I knew without a shadow of a doubt just _what_ his intentions had been all along. Knew that the phone call made from the deck while I laid there and watched him pace the hardwood was in preparation to leave, securing flights. That he had _known_ he was disappearing and orchestrated that entire thing. Guided Jasper and I through something that we couldn't have ever done without him, possibly with the hope that it would continue after he was gone.

_Or that I'd come to my senses._

"You didn't even say goodbye," my voice wobbled precariously.

"I'm sorry for that," he sighed, eyes dropping heavily to his feet.

"I thought you were trying to get away from me."

He shook his head, sounding frustrated again. "You kept telling me I was leaving. I started to believe you."

My heart seized fiercely, _unexpectedly_, and certainly harder than I ever thought possible. I missed Alice, even though I didn't want to. I was scared for her and in total awe of her and sort of fucking pissed off at her, but I couldn't believe that she hadn't come back with him. "Why did you leave her there? I don't think you should have done that."

"She married him," he shrugged, his jaw ground together, sounding unimpressed.

"Dayo? I thought she couldn't?"

"Leave it to her to trump a thousand years of cultural traditions." He smiled crookedly, as though he'd made a joke. "She's happy. Safe. I'm letting her go."

"But you're in love with her."

"You're in love with him. _Don't_ deny it," he snapped, shutting me down as I opened my mouth to protest. He was right. I'd been in love with Jasper for years and it wasn't the sort of thing I could hide. It wouldn't do any good to try to play it down because it was all over my face. A fanciful daydream love that tasted like saffron and violets. Soft and raw and pure in a way that made my mouth go numb and my heart skitter around like a preteen girl on hormones and a new crush.

When I was near Edward, my heart just churned out his name like an echo.

He was peering at me like he was reading the inside of my skull, biting his bottom lip with brutal indifference, bone and metal warping the tiny inked bell inside his mouth, eyes nearly watering as he glanced away from me. He looked nearly apologetic, as though he felt bad for yelling at me.

"You met us at a really fucked up time, Bella. We'd only back in the states for a _day_. The night of that stupid dinner, when I found you outside with that gigantic rock around your neck, I'd had my feet on American soil for exactly twenty-two _hours_. Jubilee hadn't even been dead for a week. Alice was supposed to come with me to that dinner but she was such a wreck that I basically drugged her just to get her to sleep and let my mother drag me along instead. I shouldn't have left her alone," he lamented, sounding angry and regretful. "She woke up while I was gone and destroyed her room."

I stared at Edward in shock, mouth unable to communicate at all with my brain which was probably for the best because I would have said something stupid. He took a heavy breath and chewed on his lip for a while before continuing, as though he was trying to decided how to navigate a minefield.

"I can't blame her. I destroyed our medical tent when we lost the baby, so she learned all her tricks from me. I yelled at her, screamed and ranted like a fucking asshole because she hadn't listened to _anything_ I said. She wanted to use some fucking _plant_ she found out there somewhere and made me stand by and watch her sabotage herself. I broke a bunch of stuff and said a lot of really _terrible_ things and then I left her there to deal with the aftermath. Walked around until the sun came up and I only went back because I felt so fucking guilty."

He gulped. "The village was was in turmoil and Alice was a goddamn disaster. I was terrified that something terrible was going to happen to her. That they'd come after her in the middle of the night like a damn witch hunt."

"They would do that?" I stuttered. Edward shot me a cynical look.

_Yes. Yes they would._

"This was the chieftain's _only_ surviving heir," he sighed in explanation. "Not only does Dayo not have any children of his own, his immediate family has suffered devastating losses and Jubilee was the final nail. They were out for blood and Alice just lay in her room staring at the wall like she was going fucking comatose. I probably would have done it on my own, but Dayo basically demanded that we leave. He knew that she'd be blamed and he forced me to take her away by practically banishing us."

Edward glanced warily at me but I was still too stunned to speak. He sighed again, but just from the way he kept it low in his chest, I knew everything only got worse.

"I put her on a camel and got us the fuck out of there, but I don't think we were really safe until we boarded that boat in Morocco. She cried the whole way, for fucking _days_ across the desert. We made it to Lisbon, but we got stuck before they could get a plane over to us." He swallowed roughly, jawline hard as stone. "I went to find some food for us that first night and I was only gone twenty minutes, but she managed to carve half a word into her arm with my motherfucking _pocket knife_ before I got back."

He spat the words as though they tasted like acid, caustic and flesh burning.

_Holy fuck._

"Her heaven tattoo?" I gaped.

Edward swallowed roughly and nodded. "That fucking tattoo," he grumbled. "I only made her get it because I couldn't stand to look at the scar anymore, the way she touched it. It had barely healed before the ink went down. If you look close enough you can see it underneath there." He finally looked at me, his lip rings rubbing against each other as his tongue searched them out.

"I guess I didn't realize she was that bad." I mumbled, remembering how strangely detached and overly giddy she was, jumping from topic to topic like a rubber ball on a hardwood floor. How many times she had caught me off guard, suddenly five minutes ahead and waiting impatiently for me to catch up. How she bounced between needy and remote, loving and detached, caring and nearly sadistic like it was the easiest thing in the world to be so manic.

"_Demolished_ would be a better word," Edward muttered.

"And that's the night you slept together?"

Edward stared at me, looking nearly horrified. "_Fuck_ no. I bandaged her up and fought the urge to knock her over the head so that she'd just finally sleep. I forced a sleeping pill down her and watched her all night long. She didn't say a fucking word to me for three days and then she attacked me in my sleep the night before we finally flew out. I just let her do it. I'd tried everything else and nothing was helping," he huffed. "I took her to that island hoping that we'd be able to ignore it all for a while and just try to recuperate. _That_ obviously didn't happen." He eyed me thoughtfully and I couldn't help but bite my lip.

"You think I made it worse for her?"

"No, I think you were actually better for her than I was. You gave her something I couldn't but . . . finding that Devil's Claw certainly didn't help matters. As for the rest of it . . . " His eyebrows compacted thoughtfully. "Alice was in free fall. I'm sorry she took us with her."

"Why did she do it? If she loved Dayo so much . . ." _  
_

"I don't think she gave a fuck about much by that point." He gulped and shook his head. "She went back there fully expecting to die. I expected it too."

_Jesus fucking christ._ I was beginning to understand why he'd feel the need to at least accompany her, playing bodyguard on her mad dash back into the pit of fire. If only to ensure that the people she was running to weren't going to tie her to a pole and leave her out for the hyenas. The ancient version of burning a witch at the stake.

Edward was rubbing at the dandelions on his neck, chewing on his lips.

"I can't be your default. Your second choice," I stated solemnly, staring at him.

"I can't be _yours_, either." Edward let out a rough exhale, his eyes widening and he shook his head in near frustration. "I didn't come back here with any expectations, Bella. I left Africa and walked back into a shit storm that _you_ are square in the center of. I can't just stand by and watch, but you've never given me any sort of indication that I could ever be anything but a passing phase in your life." He almost growled at the end, catching air in his throat and grinding his words between his teeth, trying to cover how hurt he sounded with a healthy coat of menace.

"I-"

"Every time I asked, you shot me down." He shook his head, cutting me off. He was right. He'd basically asked me to change my mind, maybe more than once, in so many words, and I'd deflected every one like an assassin dodging a sniper. "I left _only_ to drop her off with Dayo and the moment that was done, I got the fuck out of there. I didn't even stay for their wedding. I care about her in some way I don't really understand and I sort of blame her for it, but I'm not _in_ _love_ with her. I have no better way of explaining it," he sighed in completion.

"Just because the dog doesn't understand what the bell does to him, doesn't mean that the bell is to blame."

Edward shook his head, looking serious and determined. "She's not my bell."

_You are._

I know he didn't say it out loud. I know because I watched his mouth and it didn't move at all but I swear that I heard him, deep inside my head and with the voice he used right after he'd gotten off. A static whisper from his throat.

"Maybe the question should be, does the bell understand what it does to the dog?" He cocked an eyebrow at me, taking another drag, cigarette smoldering close to his fingers.

"Not in the slightest," I shook my head.

"Then we're even. Neither of us understands this." He leveled his eyes right at me, bordering up on accusing but staying just shy of flat-out blaming me. "I haven't taken a single breath since the last time I saw you. I think it's your fault."

"Mine?" For a moment I wanted to be hurt that he was blaming me for something too, but I fully understood the feeling of being flung around like a rag doll.

"You're not the kind I thought you were and I don't know what to do with that," he grumbled.

"Of bell? What kind am I, then?" I asked, thinking of church bells and passing bells and school bells. The liberty bell and the tiny one that chimed inside my grandmother's ancient clock.

The one inside his mouth.

"Diving," he said, flatly.

"Diving?"

"Yeah," he wet his lips, tonguing the ink between metal. "The compression chambers that divers use to resurface. I think I need you to breathe. I came up for air too fast and just got the bends."

* * *

**AN:**

I hope you understand that I can't give you the details on Bella and Jasper's car conversation.

I would cry and cry and cry and never, _ever_ stop.

**Hadley Hemingway** already has her hands full without that sort of mess and my helmet doesn't protect me from myself.

**reviews = love**


	33. Chapter 33

**Thirty Three**

There is a hidden song lyric, and a reference to two of my favorite bands hidden in this chapter.

Can you spot them?

* * *

Before I had time to do anything with Edward's declaration, sure that it was even more metaphorical than he was even eluding, Jasper appeared in the open door of the greenhouse. Like ghost from my old life, looking war-torn and wary. I was on my feet before I remembered that one of them still sort of hurt. Met him near the entrance before I remembered moving.

Flung myself up against him before I had time to wonder if I could still do things like this.

"Are you ok?" I asked, face to his chest and felt his arms go around my waist, air whistling through his lungs as he sighed.

"Yes. It went better than I thought it would. Everyone was asking for you. I made up some excuse involving your foot."

"Thank you," I breathed into his jacket. "I'm sorry that I left."

"Don't be, I don't blame you. I'm glad you're here." He pressed his cheek to my head, sounding relieved, as if he hadn't been expecting it. I don't know why he thought he'd have to search me out. I really had no where else to go.

"Where is Jacob?"

"A hotel downtown. I think it's better if we don't stay here," he spoke into my hair. "Jenks was there tonight. He assured me that he can have the paperwork drawn up in the morning."

"So fast," I whispered.

"It _was_ your only condition. I'm rewarding him generously to comply."

It had been the only thing I had asked for, quiet and quick. Really, the only words we exchanged on the entire subject and he had nearly teared up when I said it, pressing his lips tightly together and straining the muscles in his neck. He'd barely had time to compose himself before we were at the curb and the car door was pulled open, our bubble punctured by the sharp needle of party lights and people as he blinked his tears away.

If he had meant to tell me about that evenings events, Carlisle's plan and the unfolding of our secret like a deconstructed origami swan, Jacob's sudden sobbing plea had obviously thrown him off course.

I'd sort of ruined his last chance when I asked for a divorce.

_Blindsided_.

Jasper pulled away and peered thoughtfully at me, a wrinkle between his eyebrows. He glanced at Edward, still seated at the table and making a bad job of pretending not to watch us before huffing under his breath and turning back. His voice was a throaty whisper meant just for me.

"I love you," he exhaled, curling his fingers into my palm and pressing his mouth down over the diamond that hadn't come off my finger in five years. I watched in silence as he tugged at the ring, sipping it down my finger, sad that I wouldn't get to look at it every day but resisting the urge to clamp my fingers into a fist to keep it.

He dropped my hand and picked up the other.

"Forever."

The ring wouldn't slide past the knuckle of the appropriate finger of my right hand and ended up on my thumb, the diamond sliding around to hide in the soft shell of my palm. I nodded a little manically, in full agreement but worried that if I opened my mouth everything in me would just start pouring out and there would be no way to stop it.

A ruptured volcano, bleeding molten rivers of lava in an inextinguishable wave that simultaneously destroyed and rebuilt the landscape.

Jasper took my silence in stride, better at reading me than I ever gave him credit for. He kissed my forehead, this one different from any of the others he'd given before, adding a fevered flower to Edward's paisley tattoo and I let him lead me back toward the table with our fingers entwined.

"Edward," Jasper nodded at him as he undid his suit jacket and folded it over the back of the empty chair between us, settling into the seat and yanking off his bow tie. I picked it up from where he discarded it on the table and wrapped it around my wrist like a bracelet, wandering to the swing. My dress trailed through the soft bed of clover beneath me as I rocked, shimmery gold against the brilliant green.

Just like them, really.

The sterling silver model and a new vermillion version.

Twice the mess for a fraction of the price tag.

"One round left. Care to join me?" Edward cocked an eyebrow in Jasper's direction, offering a palm full of tea out for inspection.

"What is it?" Jasper's eyes followed the tea pot as Edward lifted it high in the air, sounding skeptical and he gave me a thorough once over as though trying to asses my basic well-being. I gripped the swing and tried to look as sober as possible, even though I felt groggy and strung out. It certainly wasn't the tea, Edward made me feel like a fazed out kid at a rave.

Enamored by all the pretty lights and bright eyes.

"Just tea," Edward assured, face slathered in a cocky grin. "I like her alert and begging."

The underside of my skin, the part pressed against all my warm, wet insides, went up in flames. _Again_. As though I'd dumped gasoline all over myself and set my soul on fire. How was I not completely covered in hard, wrinkled scar tissue? How was it that my flowery tattoo _still_ wasn't showing? I sunk off the swing and into the clover at my feet, threading my fingers through the fragile stems, searching for one with four petals.

I needed all the luck I could get.

"Thank you for coming tonight. I wasn't sure you would." Jasper spoke, watching Edward's strange method of pouring tea. Features crunched as though he was face to face with an alien, newly landed from another planet. Edward nearly scowled but managed to keep his face mostly straight.

"Yeah, well . . . I attended a certain board meeting with you this afternoon that proved to quite eye opening." He glanced at me cautiously and I could tell he hadn't meant for me to know that part, that it had slipped out unintentionally. I tried not to outwardly scowl but I'm sure I failed. He had said that letting me walk in there was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

He knew nothing about how hard it had been to live through.

"Why _didn't_ you tell me?"

"I didn't mean for you to even see me until afterward, I wanted you to make this decision for yourself. So that it was _yours_." Edward blinked solemnly at me, fully logical as usual. "I didn't want you to feel forced because of me. Compelled."

_Ugh. Why did he always have to answer my fumbling questions so perfectly?_

"And you?" I glared at Jasper. "You could have said _something_, could have stopped me for a moment to warn me."

"I feel terrible that I didn't. I just . . . felt so frayed," he sighed heavily, eyes dropping to his lap. "A millions different straws and I was grasping at _all_ of them. The thought that I might be the person who has kept you from acting on your own behalf hurts worse than all the rest of it." He waved his arm in an all-encompassing arc, our uncontrollable devotion and the boy who loved him, his secret spilling open and the boy who might love me, included.

"You always seem to forget that I went into this willingly. Danced into it, actually." I rolled my eyes. I didn't have to remind him of my first visit to our new house, which was basically half an hour of me squealing like a nine year old girl who just got word she was a princess with perks of ponies and a fairy godmother. Embarrassing in retrospect, but uncontrollable at the time. He'd followed me from room to room with a bemused smile on his face as though the house paled in comparison to my reaction.

"True," his eyes pinched, so I knew he was right there with me and I watched him swallow roughly. "It's easy to forget how truly wonderful you are."

"Or how lucky _you_ are," Edward spat in his direction. I could tell he was still reeling from the big fat omission he'd just laid there between us before we were interrupted. Far more open and vulnerable than I'd ever seen him before and all the armor was doing little to disguise any of it. His fingers were gripping restlessly at the chair and he was practically singing with nervous, fragile energy.

"I don't need you to tell me how lucky I am," Jasper growled. "I _know_."

Edward huffed, flushed red around the neck. He set a shot glass down in front of Jasper, the foam starting to disintegrate and slammed his own shot back without further ado, pulling at the neck of his shirt and smacking his lips. Jasper watched him with a look of near horror and glanced at me, his eyebrows puckered. I nodded, telling him to play along and he scowled at the shot glass for half a moment before following Edward's lead and downing the molten, sugary concoction.

"Jesus, that's sweet," he hissed at the end. "And hot."

"It'll get easier," Edward said, already pouring their second round and that's when I found it. The one clover with four leaves, maybe the only one in all the millions and it had been right there by my knee the whole time. I plucked it from its stem and held it on the tip of my finger for inspection, each little leaf perfectly symmetrical. When they slammed back their second shot, I put that perfect little piece of luck on my tongue and swallowed it.

"What happens now?" Edward was chewing industriously on his lip rings, fingering his empty glass, eyeing Jasper.

"She is free to do as she pleases. She always has been, but obviously, everything is changing."

"So you just toss her aside?" Edward sneered, his empty glass clutched tight in his fist. Before I could defend the decision as my own, dragging my eyes off the damp, empty end of my finger, Jasper opened his mouth.

"It's not that I don't need her," he replied evenly. "I feel as though I'm being forced to give up my best friend. It's been extremely hard for me. Letting her go."

"No one is forcing your hand," Edward huffed, eyeing Jasper's bow tie around my wrist as though it was a handcuff.

"I am," Jasper said stoically, as though he'd prepared himself to be executed. "It's time, and I've taken too much of her life. I'm leaving her the house. Everything in it. Her bank account. Her car."

"_Jasper_, no," I shook my head. He swung his head to give me a soft but demanding look.

"You've given me five years of your _life_. You always deserved someone better than me but you never seemed to realize that and it was incredibly selfish of me to hope that you never would. I do, however, value your happiness, your _security_, over anything else in the world. Please don't fight me on this," he tacked on, pleading.

I huffed in defeat, feeling drowsy and warm and oddly reminiscent of that week I'd spent on that tropical island that I was beginning to suspect had its very own time zone and a breeze potent enough to knock you flat on your ass. Edward, on the other hand, looked more than mildly admonished. I could tell that he'd never thought of it quite that way before. That while he'd been off sleeping with lions and wrestling with death in Africa, Jasper had been my never-ending source of patient care, a rock solid foundation. My mother's demise, and those she took with her weighed so heavily on me that it was beginning to show in my face but Jasper had taken all of it away.

Gave me instead the permission, and the means, to redefine my life for myself.

"As long as you understand that I'm never going to say this again," Edward spoke, the harsh edges gone from his voice, a new lower-pitched tune of respectful civility strung through his demeanor. "Thank you. For taking care of her."

Jasper inhaled sharply, holding his breath for a few moments before letting it all out in a shaky rush, eyeing Edward soberly.

"As long as _you_ don't take her to some foreign country and let her get some terrible disease . . . and as long as you recognize that I'm not willing to completely erase her. She's been the most important person in the world for the very best parts of my life."

My brain was sloshing heavily around in my skull and my dress was the most uncomfortable piece of clothing ever created by man. That four leaf was dancing around inside my stomach, clashing with the after effects of tea and adrenaline and anxiety and I couldn't help but think about that car crash I'd been so sure I witnessed the first time they met. How morbidly intriguing their handshake had been, back before I knew what was going to happen to us.

Edward poured their last round of tea, which would be the lightest and coolest of the three and I flopped into the clover, resting my head on my arm, watching as he lofted his shot glass into the air between them. He hadn't done that with me, and I was pretty sure it was breaking some sort of tribal protocol, but this final shot between them felt like something different.

Glasses clanking like the glancing whisper of metal on metal, two cars passing within mere centimeters of one another.

Barely breaking the skin.

* * *

**AN**

You have one more chapter before I call it quits.

Thank you for sharing this with me, it's been epic and strange and kind of uncomfortable. I've bedazzled the shit out of my helmet, enough sparkles and glue will make just about anything bomb proof and I think I popped a few fic cherries along the way . . .

*insert evil laugh here*

I'm interested to know who spotted my music/love . . . First one correct on all counts gets a prize.

**reviews = love**


	34. Chapter 34

**Thirty Four**

Who are you really after? / Who are you trying to find?

Who is that certain someone / That's kept you awake all those nights?

You think it's just puzzle pieces / But they never fit right

If you can't see who you're really after / Then, baby, you're blind

You could tell me what you're really after / Then, baby, just rest your head

**Rest Your Head - The Good Life**

* * *

I must have fallen asleep in the clover.

I could smell it everywhere when I woke up, the soft sharp bite of green melding with the mellow sweetness of half-gone flowers. My mouth tasted briny as though I'd swallowed sea water and the taste of it was painfully familiar but no amount of daydreaming was going to warp reality in my favor. I was in my room, the one at the end of the hallway. In my bed, the sheets speckled with patterned rose petals and the walls a dusty pink. Not at all where I was hoping I'd wake up.

An island on the other side of the world.

Lavender breeze and mosquito netting.

Pearly white sand and sapphire water and I gulped down a stinging mouthful of regret, chest aching. Suddenly wallowing through things I'd thought I put away, memories rushing back like a tidal wave without Jasper there to deflect them.

My go-to mask was gone and I was suddenly back at the very beginning.

My mother killed three people. Maybe not on purpose, maybe without specific intent, but the fact of the matter would just never go away. They were dead, and because she took herself out with them, all that guilt had nowhere to turn to but me. The guy had two kids. The teenager had been accepted to Oxford one month before and the lady who was walking her dog had just finished her last round of radiation that morning.

The only survivor was the dog.

It went to a shelter and probably ended up somewhere shitty or not at all, put down because no one wanted an old dog with possible radiation exposure.

It was safe to say that I hadn't spent single second of the next three years alone.

Those people tagged along for _everything_. Every boring daily chore and superficial special occasion. Every lonely night in bed and every dreadful day at work, until Jasper showed up, almost three years to the day and I'd given up on fighting them off a long time before that. Let them just come at me and I was drowning under the weight of them, piled one on top of another like wet sacks of flour.

My mother, suspiciously absent.

The dog, always there.

Jasper had been my drug of choice for years. He allowed me to play pretend so efficiently that I was able to practically become a different person altogether with him. Was able to let those people and that damn dog go, injecting a potent concoction of tender, numbing fantasy into my veins every time I hurt. A year into our marriage I started feeling incredibly guilty that I was using him in such a way, on an hourly basis, to soothe my pains and admitted it all to him in a stinking, drunken fit of tears.

He offered himself up, blood and bones and heart, without hesitation.

And now he was gone.

My life, as I knew it, was over.

A big fat black line had suddenly sprung up where it hadn't been before, but it didn't separate one part of me from another. Didn't show where the old me died off and the new emerged from some sort of chrysalis like a damp butterfly. Didn't mark the boundary between the past or the future.

It ran right up through the middle.

It's not possible to live with half a heart.

A bisected brain.

A single lung.

I rolled over in a fit of pain that felt sort of like death and came to bone-numbing contact with an octopus.

Dandelion seeds and two black lip rings. Lavender eyelids and a tiled floor fluctuating restlessly over his breathing. A wild tempest of bronzed hair across the rose petal sheets and I pulled stealthily away. He must sleep on his back because his arms were thrown out to his sides just like the last time I'd found him like this, face turned into the pillow, pulse thumping steadily in his neck. His lips looked bitten raw, chapped and peeling as though he'd been chewing on them a lot more lately. His shirt was discarded and there was a bandage taped to his side, sprawled errantly across several keys of his piano.

He was half naked and last night was a blur.

I wasn't naked, only peeled from that stupid gold dress but left in my bra and underwear. The thigh highs I'd been sporting had spent all night digging indented bands around my legs that reminded me too much of Alice and I yanked them off, tossing them away from the bed and struggling out of my bra. There were more indentations sunken into my ribs and the undersides of my breasts and I was really starting to believe that my other life marked me just like tattoos did.

The fact that they eventually faded away didn't make them any less permanent.

Edward woke with a start as I was rubbing the marks away, a ragged gasp of air and his fingers clenched into the sheets, bolting upright in mere micro seconds and panting roughly. He glanced wildly around the room and I have to admit I cringed a little in response, clutching the sheet up around me. He looked ready to bolt, practically shimmering with nervous energy and for half a moment I fully believed in spontaneous human combustion. I think I saw the pale blue flicker of flames ripple across his skin.

When he'd deemed the room empty of anyone but me, he collapsed back against the bed with a groan.

"_Jesuschrist_. I didn't know where I was for a minute." He rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes, sinking his fingers into his hair and then back over his face. He looked so out of place, polychrome and painted over against the girlish cotton sheets and when he set his hand down on my leg, all the tension flooded out of me. I eased back against the headboard, his grip remaining firm as though he was using me to ground himself.

"I saw you, when I was coming back," he spoke through his fingers.

"Me?"

He nodded.

"I woke up on the plane in the middle of the night, over the middle of the ocean and I could have _sworn_ you were sitting right there next to me. I don't know if I was hallucinating or dreaming or . . . I hadn't slept much, but . . ." He shook his head, eyelids fluttering closed and voice sounding almost painful. "You were so beautiful. And you didn't say anything to me. I just sat there staring at you until the stewardess came along and asked me why I was crying."

"And then?"

"I flipped out. I probably ranted incoherently and I _definitely_ freaked her out, but I was trying to tell her that I didn't give a fuck about Alice, that girl and her emotional baggage belong to someone else now. I wanted to tell her about you, that you'd been sitting there watching me for hours and you wouldn't even talk to me, but I couldn't get it out without completely losing my shit. I woke up in Chicago feeling like I drank a bottle of rubbing alcohol. You were gone."

Edward swallowed and looked at me. He ran his tongue across his bottom lip, dampening the dry skin. "You might be more beautiful than I even remembered."

"Thank you for taking my dress off." I blushed like mad, not sure what to say and settling on something stupid, apparently. It was draped across the squishy grey chair near the closet, folded carefully, a golden edge spilling to the floor. All those sequins would have been terrible to sleep in.

"That was him." Edward bit his lip, wanting to say more. He probably would have left it where it landed, which said a lot about where his priorities lay. "I can completely understand his infatuation with you, regardless of his preferences. I had to let him do it."

"He's not infatuated," I shook my head and Edward nodded right back at me.

"I'm not the only dog," he said, stoically.

"If he's a dog, then he's deaf."

"Maybe, but in the end even _Pavlov_ fell for it."

I shook my head, wondering what the fuck he was talking about and his mouth curled into that perfect lopsided smirk, twisting around his lip rings. He shrugged.

"Eventually . . . every time he heard a bell, he _must_ have had the uncontrollable urge to feed a dog."

_He was making jokes?_

_Now?_

I slapped at him, managing to drag my fingers roughly right across that bandage taped to his side. Edward groaned and pulled away, his mouth curled in pain and a mumbled _motherfucker_ into the mattress. It took him more than a few minutes to calm his breathing before he finally rolled onto his back again, looking a little ashen around the edges. I settled against his side, watching as he peeled away the edge of the bandage to look underneath and I only got a glimpse, but that was all I needed.

There was a ragged gash slicing across the piano tattoo, through all the delicate skin that lay thin over his ribs. A neat line of stitches traipsing across the keys.

"What _happened_?" I choked, pulling my eyes away as he grimaced and pressed the bandage back down.

"I got chased down by an elephant. Caught myself on a branch. The bastard almost got me." He winced as he fingered the tape. It was obviously still painful.

"You got away though?"

"_Barely_," he huffed. "12 stitches don't exactly qualify as Scott-free in my mind."

"Who sewed you up?"

"Alice. She enjoyed it more than she should have." He seemed hesitant to bring up her name but I gave him a lopsided smile, knowing that this wasn't the last time we'd ever talk about her. Even though I didn't want to think about her right now, I certainly wasn't going to stop missing her.

I'm sure he felt the same way, but a hundred times worse.

"Your keys will be broken now." I traced my finger gently along the edge of the bandage, five keys afflicted in varying degrees.

"It doesn't actually work, you know. It's just an illusion." Edward grinned slyly down at me, hair in his eyes and mouth finally curling into something that vaguely resembled a smile.

"Will you teach me?"

"Of course I'll teach you, although my mother has a real version we could use."

"I like yours better," I sighed, ignoring his attempt at logic and using my index finger to tap tap tap my way up the entire board, a wash of goosebumps flaring up behind my morse code message. He shivered before hissing in pain and trapping my hand against his ribs to stop me. That must have hurt.

"Take it easy on me, I'm wrecked in more ways than one," he murmured. Not talking about his stitches. Not talking about his skin stretching as his muscles tensed, tugging on the thread. Talking instead about his body armor and his surly demeanor. I pulled myself to my hands and slipped my leg over his waist, careful to keep my knee away from his wounds. Edward watched me silently, hands rubbing my thighs and tracing his delicate white-ink tattoo as I tried to tame my hair. He gripped me tightly, fingers biting into my skin and I let my hair tumble down around me, distracted by the look on his face.

That hungry, hollow-cheeked stare. Painful eyes and tightened brow.

"Please don't tell me to leave again," he nearly stumbled, stuttering over his words.

I put a hand to his chest to steady myself, his heartbeat beneath my fingerprints and clutched my other hand around my neck to help coax the words out. I could barely breathe and when I finally coughed them up, they weren't exactly what I was expecting.

"The swan, why did you pick it?" I traced my fingers from one dandelion seed to the next, the sprawling wings of the bird across his shoulders.

He licked the inside of his mouth, eyeing me warily.

"I don't know. I just needed it."

"It's my maiden name. _My_ name. _Again_." I stuttered.

"Swan?" He questioned and I nodded hesitantly. "Who _are_ you?" He sounded nearly mystified, as though I'd stepped into the sun and all my skin turned to diamonds. As though I was a deep dark hole in the ground and I was so fucking grateful that he'd stopped to search for gold in the mouth of a coal mine. Sure for a moment that he was my yellow bird, the one I was supposed to take into the abyss with me and I wanted to do nothing more than just fall in, feet first.

"I've been someone else for so long . . ." I shook my head. I would have to tell him everything, soon.

"Who do you want to be?"

_A daredevil. _

An impulsive madcap. Wild and reckless and full to the brim with things I couldn't decide if I only wanted, or desperately needed. In love with a boy who tested all of my limits and taught me to ask for more. Flying my kamikaze plane recklessly low, daring him to shoot me down. For once, I was sort of grateful for that giant-ass hole in my filter.

"Yours."

_If you still want me. _

I crash landed in an explosive inferno. Baptized by fire.

"Bella . . ." he exhaled, pulling me down and wasting all his words in my mouth.

* * *

**AN: That's all, folks.**

As an answer from the last chapter - I love Bright Eyes, Pretty Lights and Atmosphere, especially the song Shotgun, from which "_twice the mess for a fraction of the price tag_" came from. Congrats to **Harborcoat**, who got this last chapter before all y'all.

**Questions? Nagging concerns? Let me have 'em. Now that we're done, you just might get some answers out of me. **

**Promises of outtakes or epilogues? I don't play games like that, though I'm not marking this as complete just yet either.**

Honeybee has a fancy FB page. Come play.

And, as ever - I owe my sanity and the completed end of this to **Hadley Hemingway**. I have been super blessed and someday she'll get sick of me, but for now I pretty much think she's the shit.

xxoo

**hbm**


	35. Chapter 35

**EPILOGUE**

* * *

I opened Alice's envelope almost six months after it arrived.

It was smudged and crumpled, worn from its journey between her and me, half a world away. I kept it in the top drawer of my dresser because that was the drawer I seldom opened. There was a box of my mother's last leftover paperwork, her death certificate and the police report in a manila envelope shoved way into the back. A black velvet tray with my grandmother's jewelry, none of it nearly as expensive as what I'd received from Jasper over the years, but important nonetheless. The lingerie I'd worn underneath my wedding dress was folded in tissue paper along with the picture of Jasper and I, standing on the steps of City Hall, newly wed. Our marriage certificate from the entryway, which came down the day Jasper officially moved out, was folded carefully up beside them.

I only went into the drawer to retrieve the deed to the house, the one on which Jasper had scrawled his name, signing it over to me. When my fingers brushed against the newest addition to my sort-of-forbidden collection, I couldn't help but poke at freshly healed wounds.

It had been almost a year since she left. A year since my marriage dissolved like sugar into warm water and a year since Edward became my hummingbird, flitting around my head in search of sweetness. A year of redefinition and something that felt nearly like redemption.

The glue cracked off in my hands when I pried open the envelope. Her letter wasn't even a letter, only a few pages torn from that pretty patterned journal she'd carried around with her. The first page was an entry from nearly five years ago, stuttered and disjointed as though she'd only written thoughts down when she had a moment to and put it away for later, the second written just before we all flew to that island.

I had half an hour before Edward was due home, and I don't know why I ever thought that would be enough time.

* * *

**Asela, Ethiopia, 2007**

* * *

_**March 2nd** _

_He got here two days ago and he's already sick._

_What the fuck am I going to tell his parents?_

* * *

_**March 3rd**_

_It's malaria. Fuck fuck __FUCK__. _

_He TOLD me he got his shots. PROMISED me, the lying fucking bastard. Part of me wants to just smother him with his pillow but he has fucking __**malaria**__ and what does that say about me? _

_Even when he's sick as fuck, he's still beautiful._

* * *

_**March 6th**_

_I can't believe how bad he's gotten, and so fast. We barely had a chance to say hello before it took him. He's been tossing and turning like he's trying to run somewhere. He has a new tattoo, a giant piano on his side but he's not even with it enough for me to ask him about it._

* * *

_**March 9th**_

_Why is he so fucking stubborn? He's fighting it with everything he has, a normal person would have just let go already. He's clinging on and it's not that I want him to die, it's that I can't stand to watch him suffer. He's been boiling hot for so long that I'm sure his insides have melted and I'm seriously starting to worry about brain damage. The fever is too strong for him._

_I'm worried it might be too strong for me too._

* * *

_**March 10th**_

_It's been eight days and I haven't slept. I'm terrified that the moment I do will be the moment he chooses to let go._

_How long do you wait before you put someone out of their misery? Isn't that just like murder? Is just thinking about it bad enough? I'm such a terrible person, but he reeks of death. He has one foot through that door already and a horrible part of me wants to just give him one final shove to get him through. _

_He can't even cry anymore, there's no water left in him._

_I do all the crying for us._

_Everything I learned in med school is a lie, or useless._

* * *

_**March 13th**_

_I lay in his bed with him today. I don't give a fuck if I get it. I spent all afternoon watching the sun move across our legs and listening to his heartbeat. It's slow, but it's strong. When I finally got up to start a fire, his eyes were open and he was watching me, but he was hallucinating . . . which is always the final stage and I went outside to cry this time, in case he could see it. _

_He called me an angel. Asked me to put my halo back on._

* * *

_**March 14th**_

_He won't let go._

_Jesus christ, please just let go._

* * *

_**March 15th**_

_The fever broke this morning, but he's not conscious. _

_I'm afraid that the guy I knew left days ago and I missed it. That the fever has damaged him beyond repair. I have the same twelve lines of Bukowski stuck in my head and if he comes out of this intact, I swear I'll get it tattooed on me._

* * *

_**March 17th**_

_He woke up today. _

_Told me that I looked terrible. Asked for food and a shot of something strong._

_Thank fucking god._

* * *

**June 1st, 2012 - Madama, Niger**

* * *

_I lost Jubilee tonight._

_I lost Dayo._

_I lost Edward._

_His face, when she finally slipped away . . . I'll never forget his face. He was so angry with me, I've never seen him so mad and he was terrifying. He flipped the table and overturned the cot and then left me there with her in my lap, still warm but not breathing and her heart so silent I couldn't hear anything he yelled. _

_He called me an idealist and a daydreamer. Accused me of pandering with death, of being the demon the locals all thought I was. Condemned me for forcing him to stand by and watch._

_He'll never forgive me._

_He told me not to do it. Told me to get her hydrated before we tried anything and he's always accused me of being too stubborn. All I did was prove him right. All I did was kill a beautiful, happy little girl because I wanted to be part of her family so bad. I thought that if I saved her the way they were used to, I'd finally be accepted. _

_That they'd stop thinking of me as a witch. _

_Now, I'm worse than that._

_I can hear them, the village, and I know they're coming for me, but I don't want to leave. I want them to burn me. I want them to cut me open and destroy me so that I'll only ever be here. I don't want to exist as another person, pretending that this part of me never happened so that no one will ever see me again without knowing what I did. _

_I want it inked into my skin._

_I want it gouged into my bones._

_I want it scarred into my face._

* * *

I cried for ten minutes before I could bring myself to breathe.

There were two photographs in the envelope.

Alice and her tall, dark prince. Him scarred around the face and her sort of scarred everywhere else, standing in the brown grass with a big blue open sky behind them.

She was in a piece of thin black fabric that wrapped around her body and trailed out behind her, face freshly scarred in a delicate tribal pattern around her eyes, her hair adorned with an elaborate headdress of golden chains that hung down around her cheeks. A million beaded necklaces looped around her neck and her arms were full to the elbows with bracelets.

Dayo was naked except for a draped cloth around his waist, his night-sky skin painted with a milky way of white stars and his brilliant white smile . . . oh, his smile . . .

The other photo made my heart stop completely.

It was shot low to the ground, through the grass, capturing a hollow spot made by a giant lion. Its fur was the same tawny color of the grass, sleeping peacefully with a frantic mane of hair haloing its face and a tattooed boy sprawled up against him, sleeping just as soundly.

With hair to match.

Alice's familiar handwriting etched across the back:

_I hope you know that I love you. And him. _

_I hope you love me too._

I tucked the photo of Alice back into her letter, back into the envelope and back into the drawer I never opened. The photograph of Edward and his lion was going to hang in the front hallway.

In that empty space my marriage certificate had left behind.

* * *

**reviews = love**


	36. Outtake

**OUTTAKE:**

* * *

**APOV**

* * *

**In the dark, I'm just no good at giving relief**

**In the dark, it won't be easy to find relief**

**And I'm not proud, that nothing will be easy about me**

**But I promise this, I won't go my whole life, telling you I don't need**

**Relief Next To Me - Tegan And Sara**

* * *

"Miss Alice?" Esme's housekeeper whispered haltingly into the phone.

The exotic slant to her words sent a wash of heartache through me that tasted so strongly of the desert that I was sure for a moment my mouth was full of sand. Even though her voice was full of static and sounded light years away, I could picture her standing in Esme's kitchen, dishtowel in her hand. She was from the deserts of Mongolia and had a complicated mouthful of a name so they called her Millie and she'd been with the Cullens for so long that she was practically family. The first time I met her, fresh off a plane and freshly broken open, she took me by the face and told me not to let all my love leak out.

"A letter came for you today, _amorcito_. A special letter."

Millie could barely read English and certainly couldn't translate French so she ended up reading the letter to me word by word, letter by letter, four whole pages. For a while, I got lost in the task of it, scribbling down each letter as she sounded off but somewhere in there I started paying attention to what I was writing and by the time we reached the end, I was dropping splotchy tears onto the paper and messing it all up.

My feathery handwriting, hesitant and at a half slant, miming Dayo's words, fading into the paper of my notebook.

It didn't matter.

I knew what it said.

I drug myself out of my villa, stumbling through Edward's door a foggy blur of my former self. He was in his bed, in that ratty t-ball shirt I hated and the same look on his face he'd been sporting since before we even got here. Since our first night back, actually, and that first fundraiser dinner he'd gone to with his mom. He came home ranting about some girl in black who barely said a word to him and looked right into his soul.

I collapsed onto the bed beside him, trying my best not to cry and shoved the letter at him, tucking the photograph that was never that far away from me underneath the pillow so that he wouldn't tease me about it. He read the letter twice, his eyebrows smashed together and his lip between his teeth. Ever since he'd gotten that bell tattooed on the inside of his mouth, he chewed on it more often than usual. I knew he thought about Bella every time he did it.

"Do you think they'll even take you back? After everything?" He sounded wary and I knew it was mostly for my benefit, even if it made me hate him just a little for saying it out loud.

"You read it. He said that the Elders have agreed. The gods have pardoned me."

"The gods," Edward snorted. He rolled something around in his mouth that looked as though it tasted rotten. "What I saw out there, Alice . . . The gods don't give a fuck about those people."

He was right.

All I could see were the same images flashing before his eyes,

_Jubilee's little face, the moment the life drained out of her._

The starved and shrunken bodies topped with enormous, alien heads. The famine and war and straight up fucking genocide. Slaughter as a survival measure. Rape as a war tactic. Mother nature has come up with all sort of nasty afflictions for the human race, but the worst of them are trapped in the motherland, diseases that ate skin and bones and blood, humanity and civility, faster than any human could possibly run. It was a race that no one would win and I'd watched Edward lose patient after patient.

Hope after hope that he could ever fight a war like this. I could see the defeat in him, months before we left.

"If they've married him off?" He glowered at me.

_I hadn't thought of that._ The sobering fact was that Dayo came from a culture still sunken chin deep in strong-steeped tradition. Perched at the top of a pyramid with very little room to move, much less leap. I hated Edward again for being so blunt, but I knew that he was the only person who could ever remind me that it was useless to fight the Elders, even if I had won a small victory.

_Jubilee._

I shrugged, more than most of my bravado gone.

"I stay. Deliver babies. When I'm old, I'll go out into the savannah and let a lion get me."

"If you _make_ it that long," he huffed, sounding resigned. "I'll call tonight. Get us to Paris in a couple of days, maybe we can get some more supplies out of that mission by the river . . . ."

"You can't go with me." I shook my head at him.

"You're going to stop me?" He squared his shoulders, always ready for a fight.

"You should stay. You know you should."

Edward narrowed his eyes at me, accusing and suspicious, stuttering around her name. "This isn't about - her," he ended lamely.

"I think that you love her, Edward. You just can't see it." I tapped my finger to his temple, wishing that I could will it into his mind. I'd watched him chew the shit out of his lip for the last two weeks and was worried he was gonna stretch out those holes to the point of no return if he didn't stop.

"I _can't _do that. Don't you see? She's not _available_ for me to love. So I'm _not_ loving her."

"You're such a terrible liar, I don't understand why you keep doing it."

"Lying?"

"Yeah. Everyone's doing a lot of that lately," I grumbled and Edward exploded.

"_Fuck_, Alice! I don't know!" He bellowed, hands to his hair which he did when he was really frustrated. "I feel so fucked up lately, I don't even know which way is up anymore. I fantasize about things I never wanted before and it's all because of _her_. And then there's you, there's always _been_ you, and now you're trying to leave."

_Jubilee's face._

"I'm not leaving you, Edward."

"Then what the fuck are you doing?" He hissed.

"Giving you the space to go for something better. _Someone_ better."

"You don't know that, Alice. You couldn't know. What if she's the worst thing that's ever happened to me? Have you ever thought of that?"

"Have _you_?" He didn't answer. "Edward," I snapped and when he finally lifted his eyes to mine, they were burning emeralds hot enough to explode.

"Yes, _fuck_. Every fucking day. Every time she looks at me."

"I can't give you everything you need. You know that."

He nodded, _thank god_, which meant that he remembered the millions of times we'd hashed out the weirdness of our relationship and its unexplainable need. The mystifying way it was so easy to be together and the side-long glances we got from others who couldn't understand how we could draw a line up between ourselves and then do everything except step over it.

Rubbing right up against it until we nearly ruptured our skin, and then stopping.

Breaking every rule.

Sometimes, even I didn't understand it.

"Why can't you just let me go?"

Edward's face did something I'd only seen twice before; the first time was the moment before the malaria took him in that deathly-cold faint, the second just after Jubilee died in my arms and he trashed the inside of our medical tent. All of the life draining out of him.

_Her little face . . . _

"Fuck you, Alice," he spat. "You fucking _used_ me to try to fix yourself. And I'm just as much of an asshole as you are because I didn't _stop_ you and now look at where we are. I can't let you go, but I can't wait to be fucking rid of you."

"You don't mean that," I stuttered.

"I do fucking mean it!" He yowled, sounding nearly pained. "You're like the _goddamn_ ocean," he spat at me. "Just drowning everything out."

"And what does that make you?"

"I'm the fucking _stone_. And before you go thinking all that cliched fuzzy _bullshit_ of yours, that the ocean is somehow gonna polish that rough rock smooth, let me set the record straight because it isn't like that at all. You're just gonna motor right out to middle of the fucking sea and dump me off the side of your boat in the middle of all that endless water and _no one_ is ever going to see me again."

He tore himself away and bolted out the door.

* * *

**EPOV**

* * *

You know what?

_Fuck Alice._

Fuck her for this elaborate charade we're playing at. Fuck her for the crying and screaming and the three times she tried to use me like a mouthful of multicolored painkillers. Fuck her for flinging herself at Bella like a broken doll and for being so fucking needy all the goddamn time. Fuck her for carving such a sweet, soft word into her arm and_ fuck her_ for that dead baby.

Fuck her and _fuck_ me.

For all this false advertisement. For the purposeful pullback, sidelining myself and just letting it all roll over me. For the bitterness and the blame and the fucking breakdowns I just couldn't have. Fuck my mouth for everything I said and more importantly, everything I didn't.

Fuck my face.

Fuck my name.

I stormed out of the villa and right into the water, skin gone brittle and blood curdling to a sloshy halt in my veins. I was the tiny pinprick in a great big water balloon and the slow leak was threatening to drown me, knee deep in the ocean. I dropped two cigarettes into the water before I finally managed to get one in my mouth and lit, fingers shaking too badly to get a firm grip on it.

Or myself.

I barely remembered to smoke it anyway, smashed right up between a rock and a hard place.

Alice was a fucking mountain. Epic and ancient and imposing. Her shadow inescapable and her growth _torturously_ slow. To call her the hurricane, a tsunami or a tornado, would not do the girl justice. She was flat out fucking genocide. Utter fucking destruction. I was a country and she was the dictator. She was the light bulb and I was the star-struck moth.

I fucking hated her.

I hated her smile and the way her eyes watered over whenever she thought about Jubilee, which was all the fucking time. I hated the way she watched me chew on her lip, all secretive and smiley like she knew what I was really doing, and I hated even more that she even _knew_ there was a bell in there. I hated that she'd seen my dick, hated that she'd had it in her mouth and really fucking hated to admit that I'd enjoyed getting it into her. I hated that I was standing on some fucking island, knee deep in the water, thinking about her at all. I wanted to put my fist through something and wanted even more to go in there and take back everything I said to her.

Even if I meant it. Even if it was true.

I wanted to eat all of those words, every last fucking letter.

Calling Bella a '_hard place_' would be a goddamn lie.

That girl was straight up fucking forbidden. With eyes that just wrecked me every time she dropped them to her feet, which was way too fucking often. An endless expanse of smooth, pale skin and her teeth always fucking buried in her lip. Tits to fucking die for and this hesitant air around her that just hadn't made any sense in the beginning. I could practically see it all over her, a full body mark of all her impoverished lust. It was flowery and delicate and sprawled all up and down that beautiful clean skin in a white-ink tattoo.

Hindsight was a _motherfucker_.

I was past the point of wanting her. Traveling faster than the speed of sound but not really moving at fucking _all_. Stalking her from a safe distance just like one of those invisible lions that prowled the savannah. I wasn't sure if I was hunting her, or she was hunting me but I was fully prepared to let her gut me open.

Split me right up the middle and take whatever came spilling out.

I should tell her this shit now.

_Now_, while it was burning a hole through my throat, blindly swallowing a super nova. But I couldn't fucking do that. She kept telling me I was _leaving_, that I was supposed to go with Alice and every time it came out of her mouth she looked as though she was only saying it to convince us both of it. There was no map for this. No floor plan. It wasn't elaborate. Wasn't fucking complicated. Instead, it was one of those unnervingly simple things. Something that should have a complex explanation, but didn't. Like magnets. I just fucking needed her.

I couldn't tell her this.

Everything was fucked up enough as it was and love was not a fucking option. If I let myself do it, she would do it back.

I don't believe in willing things to life, but fuck me if I didn't do it.

I thought about those two girls and the impossible situation they'd put me into. The target of all their unresolved issues, and there were a fuck ton of issues between the two. Thought about them hard enough that when I finally decided to abandon my post in the ocean, hoping Alice had given up on me, there they were. Curled up in my bed like a couple of fucking cats; a mottled, multicolored tabby and a sleek white persian with their claws already into one another. Both of them were practically fucking naked and Alice clambered to her knees with her eyes all over me, her tats and her metal and those big tired eyes. Her arms outstretched like she was searching for the light switch at the end of a long, dark hallway.

No matter how many times she'd bruised my heart before, nothing compared to the moment it finally fucking shattered under her touch. I hugged her back, trying not to look at Bella and the stark contrast between her pearly skin and Alice's.

I fucked it out of both of us. _All_ of us. Distracted the girls with each other so that I wouldn't have to take on the brute force of _either_ of their attentions all to myself. Spent the entire time they straddled me practicing the moment I'd have to tell them both goodbye.

Two girls.

Two very different amputations.

Two very different scars.

* * *

It took three fucking days to get back across the damn desert.

Fuck the desert. Fuck camels. Rotten, miserable creatures. Fuck the heat because my lip rings turned to molten metal and my tats felt like they were catching on fire in the sun. Fuck the way the wind whines across the sand and fuck the gigantic, empty _nothing_ of a sky.

It had nothing on the freshly blown hole in my chest.

It took three days to get across the desert and four for me to flip out on Alice. Another messy display, my another spitting fight with a girl I was so tired of fighting with.

"I have to get the fuck out of here."

"No. Fucking. _Shit_." Alice practically growled at me. She'd just had her face scarred, a mask of bloody scabs around her eyes that made her five times as beautiful and twice as ugly. "Thank you for bringing me here Edward, but seriously, you need to go home."

"I don't have a fucking home," I snapped. "I've been doing the nomad thing with you for so long that I don't have anywhere to go."

"You could go back to her."

I had never wanted to punch a girl so bad in my life. "This isn't up for fucking debate, Alice. She's never given even a vague _hint_ that her choices are going to change."

"They're going to have to give it up at some point. It can't go on like that forever."

"How long do you expect me to wait for her? A lifetime? _Two_?"

"I don't think its going to take that long at all."

* * *

I had to hear her say it.

Just once, out loud.

She wasn't mine.

But she didn't. And I let her walk into that ballroom knowing that the axe was about to drop but willing to let it fall if it meant that she might finally give me a solid answer.

Because I'm a selfish, cowardly fuck who wanted her too badly to admit it first.

* * *

I woke up beside her, half expecting to be in a grass hut.

Under the stars. In a hotel or on a grass mat.

Anywhere.

Instead, I was in a soft bed in a pink room, under crisp white sheets and my head was full of something flowery and tormentingly sweet. And there she fucking was, just unbearably beautiful and looking a little scared of me, clutching the sheets up around herself. I barely trusted my eyes any more and wrapped a hand around her leg just to convince myself she was real and not another one of those airplane hallucinations.

A desert deity dancing with the heat waves.

I'd seen her twice out there and now I was in her bed, letting her slink into my lap and tell me that she wanted to be mine. _Mine_. She whispered the word, fumbling over it like a fresh piece of clay, soft and sticky and moldable. Ready to become anything she wanted it to be, right there between her palms. Chock fucking full of possibility.

"Oh, Bella . . ."

I choked. Throat constricted and lungs flashed rock solid. I had so much to say, a spewing rant of pent up want and rage and lust right fucking there behind my teeth but I just _couldn't_ force out. She deserved every word, but I gave her the only four that really counted for anything.

Wrapping my arms around her was like trying to hold onto the sun.

"I fucking love you."

She set her hands to my chest and I groaned, fisting her underwear, pulling at the fabric until she got the hint and shimmied out of them, settling her warm, damp pussy right onto my aching dick. Achingly slow, so fucking tight and jesus fucking christ, I was so gone on this girl. She sat back, giving me a fucking awesome view of her body as she traced my tattoos the same way she had the first night we touched each other.

My hands to her knees and her fingers to on my ink.

"I want to get a tattoo," she mused, fingers tripping over my skin, grinding slowly against me. I basically fucking moaned and shook my head halfheartedly. I was partial to the invisible flowery design that I knew only _I_ could see, even if I caught her staring at her arms a lot.

"I like you this way. You're so - " She flexed her hips and might as well have hit me over the head with a fucking sledgehammer. Goodbye brain.

"So . . . ?" She mimed, her eyebrows wrinkled and she looked a little worried but not enough to stop her assault on me long enough to give me time to think. I couldn't make up my mind. There were a hundred words trapped on my tongue, a _million_ of them, and none of them were good enough.

"So . . ." I stumbled for a second time when she rolled against me again, trying to coerce an answer out of me.

"Boring?" She offered and my jaw dropped open in shock.

How in the fuck could she even _think_ that?

"Fuck no," I growled. I flipped her over, pinning her to the bed and digging around with that barbell until I was sure I'd found her clit just from the delicious clamp around my dick. She dug her nails into my arms and writhed against me as I licked my lips and pressed them to her neck.

"Pristine," I whispered before I bit.

Sucking on her skin like it might break.

"Flawless."

Like it might bring me back to life.

"Pure."

A fountain of youth.

The doctor in me wanted to tell her that she was way too fucking anemic but the asshole in me really enjoyed the bruises that bloomed down her neck. Blood boiling to the surface. A traipsing line of red splotches that cascaded over her collarbone and right down to her nipple, the tell-tale twin marks from my snake bites chaining them all together like a necklace.

I licked that pretty puckered nub for good measure, but kept my teeth in check.

"That doesn't count," she panted, curling her hips into mine because she knew I would agree to just about anything when she did shit like that. "I want flowers, all over me."

"I'm fixing that," I chuckled against her skin, tracing a curling tendril with my tongue that wound around the underside of her breast and ended in a soft spiral right between her tits. Adding another blotchy bruise, petals of purple and blue. Leaves of yellow and green.

"You can see it too," she exhaled, fingers worming through my hair and I nodded, licking each bloom of a flower down her rib cage after I sucked them to the surface and all along the leafy vines that curled around her shoulders. She squirmed underneath me, which only aided my mission and everywhere I hadn't touched burst into that pretty pink blush of hers.

I kind of agreed with her, even if I was reluctant to tell her. It would be fucking hot, in the flesh. But I didn't want anyone else to see it.

It was mine.

Her hands planted themselves against my chest, pushing me to my knees and she scrambled along and into my lap. Wrapping her legs around me and letting me rub my hands all over her, tracing her invisible tattoo like it was braille and I was blind. Pushing myself into her and pulling her hard against me. Losing myself in the way her bones shifted under her skin and her breath rasped through her lungs as she gasped. The way her heart was thumping just as manically as mine and her skin started to melt right into my own.

"Are you ready?" She clutched me close, tugging hard at my hair and sending a ripping flash of heat down my back that almost made me shiver.

"For what?"

"I'm there." She shuddered, clutching me close, sighing as she came, sucking an orgasm from me that felt impossibly strong. Enough to indent a pattern all over me, on top of my ink, like the morning tattoos of wrinkled sheets.

I bit my lip rings to keep from fucking screaming her name.

She stilled almost immediately, thank god, going statuesque in my lap as I panted against her chest, trembling from the very middles of my bones. Pressing her lips to my face, covering my cheeks and eyes before landing on my mouth. I sucked in a final deep breath of air and lunged at her, pulling her lips between my own and shoving my tongue into her mouth while my dick softened inside of her. I didn't want to her to pull off just yet, struggling to extend the moment as long as possible.

"You gotta give that lip of yours a rest," she whispered against me, probably tasting the metallic bite of blood in my mouth.

"Fuck, that's your fault."

"The bell . . ." She kissed me back, just as hard, tugging at my lip rings. "Why did you do it?"

Again, millions of words, but none at all. "I don't know."

"And the swan?"

I just shook my head. I really didn't have any explanation for that either. It was one of the few constellations that wouldn't have gotten lost in all the ink I already had and the only one of the remainder that hadn't been too obscure or unrealistic.

Really, out of the millions of possible combinations of stars, it had been the perfect fit.

Improbable odds.

Her mouth quirked to the side. "You knew I was coming."

"I think I did."

* * *

***flailing with Hadley Hemingway - we're off to drink wine***

**reviews = love**


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